Posts Tagged ‘Al Jazeera’
How the Media “Edits” Some Stories (1)
Last week, Canada’s Task Force Afghanistan commander Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance spoke to CBC Radio about what’s happening in Afghanistan. It was a 20 minute interview (.mp3 here or here), and it led to some follow-up coverage by Agence France-Presse:
The military situation in Afghanistan is “serious” and “desperate,” the top Canadian commander in the country, General Jonathan Vance, warned in an interview with CBC television station.
“It’s a serious, desperate situation. It’s a major emergency,” he said.
He said it was important to explain the situation to the Afghan and Canadian publics, but not to “sugar coat anything, and it’s certainly not to make the mission seem better than it is.”
“But (I)… try and put all of that into some sort of context such that people — whether they believe we should be here or not — at least they understand,” he said in the 20 minute interview broadcast Wednesday.
Afghanistan is in a “serious, desperate situation” which constitutes a major emergency, Canada’s top commander on the ground said in a frank interview broadcast Wednesday.
Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance made his remarks at the end of a 25-minute interview with the CBC which looked at the tasks confronting Canada’s 2,700 strong mission in southern Afghanistan.
(….)
“It’s not to sugar coat anything, and it’s certainly not to make the mission seem better than it is. It’s a serious, desperate situation. It’s a major emergency,” he said.
“But (I) … try and put all of that into some sort of context such that people — whether they believe we should be here or not — at least they understand.”
and Al Jazeera:
Meanwhile, General Jonathan Vance, the chief Canadian commander in Afghanistan, described the military situation as “serious” and “desperate”.
“It’s a major emergency,” he said said in an interview on Canadian televison on Wednesday.
Note the herd effect?
I’ve highlighted quotes from the interview in red to make an interesting point.
Here’s a transcript of the CBC interview (PDF). About 20 minutes of chat works out to about 2,900 words.
The longest quote used in the follow-up stories?
56 words – from a response to the last question of the interview.
Translation: these wire service stories are explaining, at best, TWO PER CENT of an interview in their stories.
What did they miss? More on that in the next post….
TALIBAN PROPAGANDA WATCH: Don’t Be Fooled by Imitations!
One of the cardinal rules taught in journalism school is “Check your sources.” Well, the Taliban Info-Machine seems to be having some problems with media running with information or videos claiming to be from the Taliban when it may not be so.
The solution? A reminder to reporters and consumers of the media product, on a pro-terrorist web forum:
Noticed during the last period by some international media and a number of news sites on the Internet trading data recorded on video tapes anonymous and attributed directly to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – Taliban!
We therefore call on all media and those interested in Afghan affairs in general, to verify the source before the publication and circulation of any information materials attributed to Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan…
They even give you the numbers to call to confirm this info (same as the ones I shared with you here), as well as the URLs of their own web pages, and of those (I guess) guaranteed to carry the Talban message undiluted:
(Al) Fallujah Islamic Forums
http://www.al-faloja1.com/vbAl Jazeera Forums
http://www.aljazeeratalk.net / forumAnsar-ul-Mujahideen Network
http://www.as-ansar.com/vb
If all else fails, I guess you can always try the webmaster of the Taliban’s Voice of Jihad page at alemarah1@gmail.com.
You can read the Taliban’s media alert in Arabic here at the terrorist web forum, or in PDF format at a non-terrorist forum (Google English, followed by Arabic version) here if you don’t want a jihadi webmaster to see your computer’s IP number.
Has the media have been naughty, or has someone been doing a good job fooling the media into thinking certain material is Taliban generated?
If it’s the latter, well done!
More Taliban Translation Woes: Statement about US Military & Bibles
An update to this item from earlier this week.
I found this official English translation of the Taliban’s response to the alleged Bible sharing story (here’s a .pdf of the official English, followed by the Google English translation from the Arabic, on a non-terrorist web page) – some interesting highlights to share:
1) The Talib Media Monitoring Bureau alleges:
“The film clearly shows the distribution of the translation of the distorted Bible to the local people in Parwan Province by American military personnel.”
Funny, the version I looked at didn’t show anybody handing Bibles to the locals.
2) The official English translation DOESN’T include the call for the Pope to get a grip on the alleged practice of sharing bibles in Afghanistan. In fact, the official English version I’ve found also looks like it’s missing a bit of text – note the clunky cutting-and-pasting in this section:
“Since the time that our Islamic country has come under inadmissible aggression by the Americans and their crusader allies, the call to and spread of the invalid [ Search Term Begin Pashto Search Term End : Mansukh] Christian belief has also intensified.
With the direct assistance of the invading crusader Americans, hundreds of miss
The film clearly shows the distribution of the translation of the distorted Bible to the local people in Parwan Province by American military personnel.”
This isn’t the first time there’s been wacky translation results with the Taliban’s statements (check here, here and here).
Time for a reorganization at the Taliban Translation Bureau?
Al Jazeera, Bibles and the REST of the Story
Funny how some media outlets like to give the story, but not the WHOLE story.
