
ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria - slowhand09
https://www.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/dhmqzm/abc_news_is_trying_to_pass_gun_range_videos_as/
======
thanatropism
There are more instances of credible or plausible media manipulation
specifically regarding Syria, e.g. the story of gas attacks in Douma:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-
attack-g...](https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-attack-gas-
douma-robert-fisk-ghouta-damascus-a8307726.html)

Edit: This, attributed to the same author, is even clearer:
[https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/27/the-evidence-we-
were...](https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/27/the-evidence-we-were-never-
meant-to-see-about-the-douma-gas-attack/)

\----

"For in the last few days, there has emerged disturbing evidence that in its
final report on the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime in
the city of Douma last year, the OPCW deliberately concealed from both the
public and the press the existence of a dissenting 15-page assessment of two
cylinders which had supposedly contained molecular chlorine – perhaps the most
damning evidence against the Assad regime in the entire report.

The OPCW officially maintains that these canisters were probably dropped by an
aircraft – probably a helicopter, presumably Syrian – over Douma on 7 April
2018. But the dissenting assessment, which the OPCW made no reference to in
its published conclusions, finds there is a “higher probability that both
cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being
delivered from aircraft”."

~~~
EastLondonCoder
I like Robert Fisk, he is hell of a solid correspondent but on this case he is
absolutely wrong.

The Douma gas attack has been investigated not only by the OPCW, but by
organisations such as the UN, the Red Cross and pretty much all serious
journalism from the BBC, NYTimes to The Times and Wall Street Journal. They
all agree that the Syrian Governmant gassed its own people i Douma.

The consensus is overwhelming, the wiki page on the incident lists 119
sources. I obviously haven't checked all of them but most look credible to me.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douma_chemical_attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douma_chemical_attack)

~~~
equalunique
The consensus became less overwhelming since you commented this. See:

“Expert Panel Finds Gaping Plot Holes In OPCW Report On Alleged Syrian
Chemical Attack” by Caitlin Johnstone
[https://link.medium.com/7qYYVU2Z40](https://link.medium.com/7qYYVU2Z40)

Back in 2012, when ISIS beheading videos where showing up on my Facebook
newsfeed every week, I recall it was Syrian rebels who were brandishing
chemical weapons - but the MSM never mentions it:
[https://youtu.be/TpIRRRuCEyg](https://youtu.be/TpIRRRuCEyg)

------
nyczomg
Why does this seem to be disappearing from the HN front page? This blatant war
propaganda was broadcast to millions of people, possibly after someone at ABC
doctored the video. That's a big deal by itself. And if that's not enough for
this to be relevant to our interests here, we only know about this because of
tech companies like reddit and twitter that give a platform to some random
person who can identify this BS within minutes. Decades ago ABC and others
could have gotten away with this on every single one of their broadcasts.

Are people numb to this? Do we just not want to discuss it because we don't
think we can be civil any more?

~~~
Erwin
It's not relevant to the HN guidelines and so most people will flag it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Is it interesting that some news org is passing stock footage? Is that in any
way new? Maybe if they were using "deepfakes" to generate fake news videos it
would be interesting, but it's not like the Turkish attack is in any way
disputed.

Is reddit a good "detective"? Well,: [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-did-
it-reddit](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-did-it-reddit)

~~~
nyczomg
Those guidelines are fairly subjective when it comes to something like this.
They don't say "most stories about politics..." rather than "all stories about
politics..." for a reason. I think you could effectively argue either that
this is on-topic or off-topic...

That said, then why not err on the side of leaving this up? I like HN because
there are usually insightful, level-headed discussions about a wide variety of
topics. This is definitely one I'd love to read a larger take on from the HN
crowd on. This isn't a status quo I'd like to see more people accept.

------
codegeek
Mainstream news media has really gone to the dogs. Doesn't matter which side
of the political spectrum you are on, I highly recommend not watching
mainstream media on TV and instead find indie youtube channels.

~~~
cptskippy
> instead find indie youtube channels.

Like Infowars?

~~~
beerandt
If you're watching _any_ news source, and think it's not biased, you need to
stop and figure out what their angle is, and why you're allowing them to fool
you.

The easiest way to do this is usually listen to the other side.

I'll skeptically take self-admitted bias over subversive "neutral" any day.

The danger is limiting yourself only to sources of similar bias.

~~~
cptskippy
> I'll skeptically take self-admitted bias over subversive "neutral" any day.

The trick is to read about the same event from all sides.

Self-admitted bias will gladly skip, ignore, distort, and excuse elements of
stories they think reflect poorly on their side. With out other perspectives
you'll never know and end up with a warped sense of reality.

~~~
beerandt
That's basically what I was trying to get at with the last sentence. In
hindsight, it's confusing.

------
knolan
This reminds me of the time ITV in the UK showed footage purporting to show
the Provisional IRA shooting down a British Army Lynx.

Turns out it was a video of an ARMA2 mod.

[https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-
ireland-15082177](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-15082177)

------
remarkEon
How possible is it to realistically fake something like this, instead of just
re-purposing some gun porn? I'd be more concerned about that than some anxious
journalists getting trolled into publishing something that is, to the
initiated, obviously not from Syria.

~~~
catalogia
In the present, faking something like this convincingly is probably more
expensive than just passing off stock footage as the real thing. If they are
motivated by laziness/greed, I wouldn't expect them to cough up the resources
for an outright 'hollywood fx' style fabrication.

(When the stakes are higher and spy agencies are involved... who knows.)

------
rogual
Actual reddit thread:
[https://old.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/dhmqzm/abc_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/dhmqzm/abc_news_is_trying_to_pass_gun_range_videos_as/)

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AdmiralAsshat
> It should be noted that Kentucky is located nowhere near Syria.

I am horrified that the author felt the need to clarify this, as if it was in
dispute.

~~~
shsjxjbsbs
I’m pretty sure it was a joke.

------
java-man
Do we know who is the major owner of ABC?

~~~
beerandt
You mean Disney?

------
dsfyu404ed
I really hope there's an incompetence (as opposed to just not caring about
doing their job right) based explanation for this otherwise it calls all of
ABC's other reporting into question as well as that of every similiar media
company.

Edit: I'm genuinely curious why this getting down-voted?

~~~
canadacorner
I suspect someone sold them the altered footage and they rushed to get it on
the air. Either for a financial benefit, or to specifically get them to air
falsified footage. (Project Veritas?) Responsibility still lies with ABC to
verify.

~~~
Rebelgecko
It's a shitty situation, I doubt ABC knew it was footage from the US. But how
do you verify that a random video clip, filmed at night, actually took place
in Syria (assuming the crowds were cropped out before they saw it, otherwise
its fairly obvious)

~~~
catalogia
I might be treading on thin ice here, but more cultural diversity at ABC could
have prevented this. The Knob Creek machine gun shoot is kind of famous in
gun-enthusiast circles. With the number of machine guns being shot and the
number of hollywood style gasoline explosions going off, I do think I would
have recognized the source of this video if it were presented to me without
context. There are many videos of this event from different years and from
different spectators, but they all generally look about the same; tons of
tracers and tons of gasoline fireballs.

I am not a combat veteran so the following is speculative, but I suspect the
footage may look suspect to combat veterans as well. Big orange fireballs like
that are from milk jugs of gasoline, not high explosives. That sort of thing
is done for visual effect, not lethal effect. Certainly vehicle fuel will
catch fire on battlefields, but I can't help but suspect the video would look
"off" to a combat veteran.

------
maxaf
News outlets and so-called journalists only ever had “credibility” insofar as
there wasn’t another information medium by which their claims could be
(in)validated. Now that this medium exists (you know, the internet)
“journalist” is no longer someone we need to trust, believe, or finance.

~~~
xxxtentachyon
I think I can take it as an axiom that in order for a democracy to function
well, the people in it need to know what's going on both domestically and
abroad. Who do you suppose should go out and find and publish needed
information? If your answer isn't "journalists", then what separates those
people from journalists?

~~~
ken
In this case, the complete and correct information was provided by some random
people on Reddit, not "journalists".

And one answer to your second question could be: money. Professionals need to
generate (exactly) 60 minutes of news every night (minus time for
commercials), and have it be entertaining enough to get people to watch (so
they can sell more commercials). Amateurs providing random facts on the
internet are not dependent on other corporations to generate income, or daily
TV/newspaper deadlines.

Thought experiment: if we didn't have a profession called "journalism" today,
and free worldwide publishing already existed (i.e., the internet), would we
wish that they existed? Would people be saying "For the sake of our democracy,
we need to pay these random Reddit fact checkers a good salary"?

