Monday, June 13, 2011
Media standard of evidence
A "gay girl in Syria," whose blog posts were designed to discredit the Syrian government, has now been revealed to be an American man in Scotland. Notwithstanding the lack of any evidence that "her" posts were fact rather than crude propaganda, "her" story was featured in such corporate outlets as CNN and the New York Times.
Not only circulating in the corporate media as they play their role of demonizing imperialism's enemies, another story, the "mass rape with Viagra by Libyan soldiers," has made it as far as an International Criminal Court investigation (along with major press coverage). And the basis for this accusation? It borders on the preposterous (actually I take that back, it's nowhere near the border). A "woman" (who is unidentified, and for all we know is also an American man based in Scotland) claims to have sent out 70,000 questionnaires (in Libya. In the midst of a civil war) and received...wait for it...60,000 (!!!) responses reporting a total of 259 rapes by Libyan government soldiers. And this is the basis on which the ICC is making public accusations. And the basis, probably unknown to many of them, on which corporate media hacks propagate the story, all in the service of imperialism.
