False 'combat video' raises many questions, cautions for media

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The Hill

I feel pretty safe in saying that most Americans can’t tell you off the top of their head who the Kurds are or what the U.S. relationship with them is — let alone how that factors into Iran, Russia, China, Turkey and Syria.

Without explaining as much, the topic of President Trump’s “abandonment” of the Kurds and how it will surely put a resurgence of the Islamic extremist terrorist group ISIS on Trump’s shoulders, has dominated news coverage for much of the past week.

Now comes word from ABC News that it has pulled down video that aired on its flagship broadcasts, which claimed to show a “slaughter” by Turkey on the Syrian border after President Trump’s announced withdrawal of U.S. troops.

 

ABC correspondent Ian Panell reported on Sunday that the video “obtained by ABC News, appears to show the fury of the Turkish attack on the border town of Tal Abyad two nights ago.”

The pictures show massive explosions lighting up the night sky. But it turns out ABC may have been hoodwinked, according to its own account.

A tweet issued by ABC News on Monday morning reads: “CORRECTION: We’ve taken down video that aired on ‘World News Tonight’ Sunday and ‘Good Morning America’ this morning that appeared to be from the Syrian border immediately after questions were raised about its accuracy. ABC News regrets the error.”

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Journalists Have Become Hoaxers

President Trump is castigated for calling out “fake news” as “the enemy of the people.” Yet he is correct, and journalists reinforce Trump's view on an increasingly frequent basis.

For the Washington Post, “Democracy dies in darkness” yet for the American people, their faith and trust in media is dying, not in darkness, but in the light of day, right before our eyes.

I had the recent opportunity to watch filmmaker Joel Gilbert’s latest film, The Trayvon Hoax. Joel demonstrated a long-lost art, investigative journalism, and he did it in a fun and entertaining manner. Unlike cable news gabbers who get their talking points from echo chamber left-wing distributions networks like the former JournoList, Joel examined phone records, photos, and yearbooks. He knocked on doors and actually talked to people.

Once upon a time this would be called gumshoe journalism, walking around, investigating, putting in actual effort. Modern journalists only use their thumbs, checking Twitter and reporting tweets as verified news.