Tuesday, February 26, 2008

LIES THE MEDIA TOLD ME

The BBC World News bulletin I watched yesterday led off with a story of the so-called peaceful demonstration in Gaza that allegedly attracted 40,000 to 50,000 but the true figue was about 10% of that number and included schoolkids given the day off and relieved of the pain of having to watch Assud the Jew-eating rabbit on the Hamas kid’s show Pioneers of Tomorrow.

Reuters reporter Nidal al-Mughrabi [Gazans stage mass protest against Israeli blockade] at least got the numbers right but it was a bit of stretch to call the event "peaceful" when 50 stone-throwers militants were detained. He also added that "militants in the Gaza Strip fired rockets at southern Israel while the protest was under way". Technically correct Mr. al-Mughrabi but in reality the rockets were targetting Israeli civilians i.e. human beings so the "militants are really terrorists but that's not the impression Hamas wants its media dupes to give to consumers of news.

Associated Press Writer Amy Teibel would have won more brownie points from Hamas. She left out the parts about the stone-throwers and the rockets, as did the BBC World News report which airbrushed the Israeli side of the story out of existence altogether.

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