Joseph Butson

The recent war coverage in the Middle East brings home just how low the mainstream media [msm] has sunk.

Falling hook, line and sinker for jihadist propoganda, no less than Reuters, AP, BBC and the New York Times were outed as covering the war from the narrowest of views. Time and again, using stringers and local photograhers to complement foreign correspondents with anti-israel bias, the msm breathlessly reported near truths and displayed doctored photgraphs with out the slightest of scrutiny.

They actually spawned a “sixth column” of bloggers from around the globe who outed the Green Helmet Guy, the ambulance attack that wasn’t and remarkbly poor photshoping within minutes of the guileless reportage of the msm.

But that is old news. What’s new is that the msm have rarely risen above hack status. Mark Steyn reveals a manuscript over 60 years old, written by the late Alastair Cooke, the famed American correspondent for the BBC.

His observation are brutally honest:

We are a tribe of artful men who have learned over the years to stifle our doubts about our own capacity to observe. We soon renounce the human beings we deal and live with for a context of ‘public affairs.’ This means usually the society of other journalists, diplomats, businessmen, civil servants, and the minor functionaries of State Departments and governments recently dethroned. Within this convenient frame of reference, you can find an approximation to the ‘truth’ that will glibly describe any current crisis in the political life of any country you care to name . . . There has never been anything to prevent even a minor poet from stumbling on an emotional truth that is a daily truism of an analyst’s parlor. The only difference is that the ‘foreign correspondent’ solemnly believes his ‘conclusions’ are ‘reached.’ “

Reaching conclusions without reporting news at all about sizes it up perfectly.

And Melanie Phillips [author of Londonistan], has more than to say on that subject too.

Much has been made of the “faux-tography” propoganda that Reuters, AP and the BBC have plastered on the news, news website, newspapers and network news.

These main stream media outlets have been outed by the blogosphere, mainly Little Green Footballs - Charles Johnson. They have faked the news; were led by Hizbollah agents who control Southern Beirut and beyond; and have compromised what little ethics they had left by siding with the militant Lebanese terrorist group.

The sickening montage here shows photographers led by the “green helmet guy” in the staging for photos of a dead child’s body at Quana, Lebanon . These narcissistic self-indulgent reprobates have sold their souls for propoganda of the most dubious group of terrorists masquerading as “freedom fighters.”

Just a reminder about how one President inspired a generation:

“Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

President John F. Kennedy 1961

News is breaking on the plot to blow up American airlines enroute from London to the USA’s largest cities:

Go here, here and here.

Then here and. here

ht: LGF; Technorati; Drudge