I have been wondering this for quite some time....
I tune into radio talk shows a lot and I always hear news that simply could just be made up.

I have absolutly nothing to go by besides a hunch I have. Does this make any sense to anyone?

Here is the deal. News that is gererated in the US can be followed up on by millions of people. News that is generated within the middle east cannot be questioned because an average layman like myself or a local reporter couldn't just go over there and ask about what was on the news.

There are reporters galore over there and they all represent mainstream media. I guess what I saying is.....Is any media tampered with or manipulated in any way? This tamperd news could be shaped to fit ANY political agenda.

Am I crazy

I guess I just don't trust anything I see or hear from any news source.

Does anyone have any examples of manipulated war news?

This will forever plague me...........

You are most definetely not crazy or paranoid. You have a right to say that because, well we of all people do not stand up for our government unless, they do something to influence our thoughts on there take. Unless, you can go out and about and afford to travel and do journalism, the truth is discoverable that way for yourself.

/7A

Not only are we reliant on mainstream sources, this is the first war, as far as I am aware, where all the reporters are "embedded" with particular military units.

Its the only reason that makes sense to me for Alan Johnston's kidnapping, to discourage independent (not that he was, being BBC) journalists operating in the middle east. Can you imagine trying to find out the true story over there, with no support structure.

Maybe if you take Al Jazeera, and Fox News, and look somewhere in between for the real story. Ultimately, which news sources can we trust?

Originally posted by Karilla
Not only are we reliant on mainstream sources, this is the first war, as far as I am aware, where all the reporters are "embedded" with particular military units.
......Can you imagine trying to find out the true story over there, with no support structure.......

Maybe if you take Al Jazeera, and Fox News, and look somewhere in between for the real story. Ultimately, which news sources can we trust?

Excellent way to put it. I guess I'm not so crazy after all!

Thanks for the replies!

Thanks for the links I will check them out when I have some extra time. Thanks

Originally posted by IMAdamnALIEN
Thanks for the links I will check them out when I have some extra time. Thanks

Np man,hope they can be of any help.

I personally find Al Jazeera English very balanced in it's reporting, to the extent it has been banned by Iran in the past.

It does a very good programme called 'Listening Post' which takes an analytical look at News coverage over the week from news stations around the world, as well as looking at news posted on the internet and etc.

Of course, this is just my own perception and may not neccessarily be true.


BBC News 24 is awful in my opinion, but to me this is evident of the BBC's back being broken by the Hutton Whitewash Report.

The BBC has struggled to recover, and only BBC2's Newsnight, 'Today' on Radio 4, BBC World Service, and a handful of all-too-underused reporters on television news still hold the standard of high quality reporting of current affairs for the BBC.


As for Fake War News, certainly, the US Military banned news coverage of the bombs that explode in Baghdad and elsewhere so as not to portray a negative image of Iraq, but people will still report on it, as they should, as a duty to the world, to be it's eyes and ears in Iraq.


[edit on 7-7-2007 by Regensturm]

[edit on 7-7-2007 by Regensturm]

Of course we are being blatently lied to from the media. It wasn't that long ago that they made a report on how a soldier had actually died from friendly fire, when before they said he was killed by Iraq's troops. The military covered it up so that they wouldn't look so bad and so that Iraq would be blamed. We can't trust anything we hear about the war over the news.

There is truth to what they report however it if selective in my opinion. Even though reporters were embedded into the war you didn't really get to see what happen. We literally destroyed everything in our path to overtake Baghdad but in war thats what you do. Now, did you see any of the true images of that event? No, you seen what they wanted to show you that is all.

I cringe listening to world news even local news because they hype up things to the extreme making it far worse than it is especially if there really isnt no good news to report. They would prefer to show bad news over the good things people do such as helping homeless or the like.

I think the news is a puppet to a higher source and leaves too many holes in story's which are always one sided, their opinions they state are facts.

This is slightly OT, but my wife watches CSI and some of those types of crime shows a lot. Not too long ago, I was with her for one of them, I can't recall just which one, and this came up.

The storyline was about some reporter who faked Photos of the war to get awards and such, and then had to kill the person who found out about it.

Which brings me to the reason I posted. Have any of our ATS members who are so good at spotting "tampered" UFO pictures ever looked at a lot of the war photos?

A real smoking gun would be finding that some of these images were "made up' in some way. I'm not saying that this is so, just wondering.

This is slightly OT, but my wife watches CSI and some of those types of crime shows a lot. Not too long ago, I was with her for one of them, I can't recall just which one, and this came up.

Staying OT for a sec

Actually something like this happened in the UK a couple of years back, some pictures appeared on the front pages of several Newspapers,(Daily Mirror I think) the pictures were meant to show an Iraqi hostage in the back of a truck been beaten and peed on, there was a huge debate about whether they were faked or not, and I can't remember the outcome.


Back on Topic

The problem is people will believe anything that comes through the telly or newspapers, as these are pretty much the only sources of information we have, as mentioned earlier it's always a good idea to check various regional news sites for better insights etc, maybe it's time ATS members banded together to form their own news network, as a site like this must have users in every corner of the globe who would be able to give there side of events etc.





[edit on 24/06/2007 by The Pinky Ponk]

maybe it's time ATS members banded together to form their own news network, as a site like this must have users in every corner of the globe who would be able to give there side of events etc.

That would be nice Pinky Ponk, but it sort of goes that way now, doesn't it? I mean if something is off, someone in the area talks about it here.

And fake news, especially pics, would be hard to spot except as CGI or something. Even someone from a given area wouldn't know if an event happened as told or not, unless they were on hand at the time.

And how will you get independent people embedded into units in Iraq?

It would be nice though. To have news you could trust to be real would help a lot.