THE AMBULANCE CHASERS [PART THREE]

The Zombie website has been updated to include a substantial rebuttal of the weak attempts by The Australian and The Melbourne Age to wriggle out of their involvements in THE RED CROSS AMBULANCE HOAX.

Martin Chulov of The Australian, the lightweight Sarah Smiles of the Age and the even lighter weight Jo Chandler of the same newspaper have been left looking very shabby indeed after the Zombie update delivered a knock out blow to their journalistic performances.

And while he was at it, a couple of other issues were highlighted including these:-

* One of the early criticisms of the reporting on the hoax was the claim that Israel had accepted responsibility for the alleged attack. Smiles herself confirms that this is not true:-

An Israeli army spokesman told The Age yesterday that the army had not yet established what happened and the incident was under investigation.

"We were in a war," the spokesman said.

"It takes time to find out exactly what happened and whose fault it was and why. We are not saying it was an accident or that we take responsibility. We only say that the incident in question occurred in an area used to fire hundreds of rockets into Israel … The army warned the population in the area to stay clear of rocket launching sites because we intended to operate there against activity by Hezbollah terrorists."

* There seems to be a proclivity among some journalists to characterise reports based on what they perceive to be the politics of the author. The best way to answer criticism is to label that person as a "right winger" and bingo, his or her arguments are worthless!

Zombie's response:-

I am not "right-wing," despite what zombietime's detractors may want to think. If exposing extremism and political bias makes me a "right-winger," then the term has lost all meaning. I support progressive liberal democracy; if anything, groups like Hezbollah should be considered "right-wing" according to the traditional meaning of the term.

I agree and wish somebody should tell the Melbourne Age the same thing. The poor old Age should have taken note of the pasting that Chulov and the Australian were getting over their feeble attempt to explain their questionable role in the Red Cross Ambulance Hoax fiasco. It surely must be regretting the fact that it enlisted Smiles and Chandler who only succeeded in botching things up more badly than Chulov.

Still, I guess it was necessary for the Age to jump in because so many of its reports on the conflicts in the Middle East contain information given reporters by anonymous Palestinian and Lebanese sources. Unfortunatley, even when it's proven time and time again that these sources are unreliable, the Age will continue to use them and the truth will continue to buried in its blank pages.