No one fact checks the so-called "fact checkers"
CNN Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward entered a Syrian prison last week reporting on a prisoner brutalized for 3 months. Turns out he is a member of Syria's Assad's intelligence
By Ray Hanania
FREE/International Syria CNN/Monday Dec. 16, 2024
Sometimes the news media comes across what they think will be the greatest story ever told, and they let their guard down because they just can’t resist the accolades and the journalistic egotism they believe they will receive.
News media ego is almost as bad as news media bias, something that continues to plague the mainstream news media when it comes to certain subjects that are politically contentious.
That happened last week when CNN reported on what they described as a startling discovery, a prisoner wrapped in a dark blanket who was awakened by Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward and her camera crew as they walked up to his prison cell.
Ward had visited several Syrian prisons in search of freelance American journalist Austin Tice who has been missing since August 2012. Ward didn’t find Tice, but she found something she described as “extraordinary,” like that scene from the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” sequel, “2010,” when the “form” of former astronaut “Dave Bowman” tries to convince astronauts sent to recover the spaceship Discovery outside of Jupiter that something “extraordinary” was about to happen.
Who doesn’t long for a moment like that, including many journalists whose eyes are blinded by the glare of fame and big awards and journalism prestige?
The prison, Saydnaya Military Prison near Damascus, is notorious for the torture and murder of Syrian dissidents arrested by the regime of former dictator Bashar Al-Assad, and controlled by the Syrian Mukhabarat (secret police) from the Syrian Air Force. People who reported on it said that anyone who left its dingy dark cells probably did so on their backs, dead, not alive. Very few prisoners walked out of there to freedom.
Saydnaya Military Prison is described as a “slaughterhouse” by Amnesty International, you know, that human rights organization that many people around the world cherished as a champion fighting for the rights of human beings … until they happened to criticize Israel’s Prime Minister, war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, who has an arrest warrant issued for him by the International Criminal Court (ICC), that also lost its international luster after it too criticized Netanyahu?
Amnesty International, still a reputable organization in my mind, describes the Saydnaya Prison in this way: “The prison is under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Defence and operated by the Military Police. Saydnaya became notorious for the use of torture and excessive force following a riot by detainees in 2008. There are two buildings on the Saydnaya site, which between them could contain 10,000-20,000 prisoners. Since the beginning of the crisis in Syria in 2011, the prison has become the final destination for both peaceful opponents of the authorities as well as military personnel suspected of opposing the regime.” Click here for more information.
Naturally, when a bigshot reporter like Ward stumbles upon the bundled “prisoner” in the middle of an international transformation like that taking place in Syria following the sudden flight of Al-Assad from his luxurious palaces, she’s going to go gaga over it. The extraordinary “Wow Factor” overcomes all professionalism and Ward reported it as it unfolded. No fact checking, just presented as CNN’s camera recorded it.
As Ward and her crew wandered through the prison, they called to the prisoner who was lying on the cement ground wrapped in the blanket from head to toe, to wake up. They finally nudged him and he rolled over. They “helped him” stand and he described how he had been in prison for three months, although his eyes did not seem bothered by the lights for someone who was in the dark for so long.
I wasn’t there. But as soon as I watched the report when it was broadcast, my gut told me there was something wrong. The “prisoner,” who identified himself as “Adel Gharbal from Homs,” seemed to be pretending. You know, like when the police on TV’s Forensic File program often interrogate a husband who claims he knows nothing about the murder of his wife, and you just know there is something wrong.
That gut sense of skepticism is the foundation of good journalism, even in the most exhilarating and shocking of news story scenarios. Good journalists have that sense of right and wrong, real and fake, caution over balls-out declaration of prize reporting.
Not Ward. It was just too much to not report to the audience. We found a prisoner who didn’t even know Al-Assad had been forced out of the country and his brutal regime had collapsed.
“Oh, the humanity of it all.”
As the CNN camera rolled, “Adel Gharbal from Homs” woke up and steadily walked out of the cell with his arms held by the CNN crew and Syrian translator.
Acting at its finest apparently, begging for water. Then when he walks out after 3 months in darkness, he looks up at the sky without even blinking. Moaning but still walking like he had a lot of strength, despite not having food or water for four days. He cries that he hasn’t heard from his children.
Nominate this guy for an Academy Award.
Turns out his real name is Salama Mohammad Salama, who is also known as Abu Hamza, a first lieutenant in Syrian Air Force Intelligence.
What an “extraordinary story,” in Ward’s own words.
“This is one of the most extraordinary moments I have ever witnessed,” Ward tells CNN host Jake Tapper, who has come under a lot of criticism over the past year for his biased political coverage.
Meanwhile, true suffering continues unreported in Gaza where more than 44,000 people have been massacred by Netanyahu and weapons given to him by the U.S. Government.
You want to see real tragedy. Do a few news reports on Israel’s massacres in Gaza. Of course, CNN won’t challenge Israel’s ban on independent reporting. Everything reported from Gaza must go through an Israeli censor to ensure that the truth doesn’t get reported there. Those journalists who try to do it on their own, well, they are not imprisoned by Israel. Just killed. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports more than 137 independent journalists have been killed.
Who cares about facts in the mainstream American news media when you can broadcast “extraordinary” scenes of what we pine for?
3 months, huh? Well, at least Ward discovered from this Syrian torturer how long prisoners were "entertainment" for the Assad regime. After that starvation, overcrowding and slow asphyxiation took over, determining their life span. Ain't it great to have a president-elect who admires dictators? Gotta be "strong" if you want to take your country back, right? No doubt Netanyahu fits the dictator mold, too. It's repulsive what's occurring in Gaza and elsewhere. It's repulsive to see the "axis of evil" grow to include China and perhaps India. Let's see if Republicans can take a timeout from making lists of the enemy within long enough to get anything worthwhile done for the American people and nation. I'm not holding my breath. There's still elections to influence, right?
Clarissa Ward is horrendous & has revealed that entertainment/pseudo new media is dumb as rocks when it comes to the Arab Middle East & Africa & Black America & any other marginalized-by-CNN folks. Why no stories about real journalists being strategically murdered by Israeli occupation forces? CNN has proven itself an cheerleader, enabler, and de facto perpetrator of genocide. How do those hosts look at themselves in the mirror. The whole world will remember & record their ignorance and indifference to genocide.