h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ladies and gentlemen,
I have just been in communication with someone and there is something horrible going on here. I reproduce his email here and wonder what anyone has to say. This is worse than "planing" the WTC!

Ahmed


"Subject: CNN exposed!!


CNN showed Palestinians cheering the death and destruction of 11 September. The scenes were repeated throughout the day and around the world to sow hatred against the "callous" Palestinians.

Now it turns out that it used footage from 1991 and just claimed that it was today's footage. A contributor to CounterPunch (edited by Alexander Cockburn) reports that he and his colleagues had compared this tape with one from 1991 showing Palestinian cheering, and found them to be identical.
Here are excerpts from that letter by Marcio A. V. Carvalho at State University of Campinas - Brazil:

"All around the world we are subjected to 3 or 4 huge news distributors, and one of them - as you well know - is CNN. Very well, I guess all of you have been seeing (just as I've been) images from this company. In particular, one set of images called my attencion: the Palestinians celebrating the bombing, out on the streets, eating some cake and making funny faces for the camera.

Well, THOSE IMAGES WERE SHOT BACK IN 1991! Those are images of Palestinians celebrating the invasion of Kuwait! It's simply unacceptable that a super-power of communications as CNN uses images which do not correspond to the reality in talking about so serious an issue.

A teacher of mine, here in Brazil, has videotapes recorded in 1991, with the very same images; he's been sending emails to CNN, Globo (the major TV network in Brazil) and newspapers, denouncing what I myself classify as a crime against the public opinion. If anyone of you has access to this kind of files, search for it. In the meanwhile, I'll try to 'put my hands' on a copy of this tape.

But now, think for a moment about the impact of such images. Your people are hurt, emotionally fragile, and this kind of broadcast have very high possibility of causing waves of anger and rage against Palestinians. It's simply irresponsible to show images such as those."

Marcio A. V. Carvalho State University of Campinas - Brazil.

Ahmed speaking: WELL, WELL, WELL, THE ROACHES ARE GETTING OUT OF THE CUPBOARDS NOW ARENT THEY?

14 September 2001
Rumour alert:
Various rumours
circulating on the
Internet -- alleging
that the Reuters
footage depicting
Palestinians
celebrating in the
wake of the attacks
in the U.S. was in fact
footage from a
different event -- are
false. Still images, such as the Associated
Press image above, were additionally shot by
photographers from a variety of wire service
agencies.
Reuters' International Editor, Anthony
Williams, confirmed to The Electronic Intifada
that "This material was shot on Tuesday. The
suggestion that it was old is false." Mike
Hanna, Jerusalem bureau chief of CNN, the
media organisation named in many versions
of the rumour, told us that, "I can
unequivocally state that the footage shown
on CNN of a small group of Palestinians
"celebrating" was shot by a Reuters crew in
East Jerusalem on Tuesday. The allegation
that it was shot at any other time is
contemptible."

A separate issue, The Electronic Intifada's
statement about the media's misuse of
these images, can be found here: [copyright material removed by moderator]

ah well... my post is sooooooooooooooooo gonna get moderated but I'm too tired. I'm going home to bed

So which is true?

a seeker of truth called Ben

oh wow, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (surprised any of the post is left!). I don't really care which is true, it was still pretty disgraceful to show it over, and over, and over again.

Magrat.

You are probably right. What was the intended effect of showing it over and over and over and over.................. again? News? While they "accept" that it was a small group of Palestinians? By the way the "small group" part just entered the news item recently!

Yeah, so which is true?

I couldn't say, because I received both by email, not from any news service.

I saw the photos on other news station not CNN. I heard it was a rumor but I would also like to say it wasn't shown here as often as you might think. Most of the news was running on a loop so it was played at the end of the loop. most updates where read across the bottom of the screen. I haven't seen it since tuesday.

i think that the media have got a tough job at the moment. They are trying to inform people of the truth, but they do not know the truth themselves, and so sometimes have to put out stories that are unconfirmed. It puts the whole media into shame, and we (the public) do not know who to believe. there are a lot of false and mis information flying around at the moment and we have to take a second look at what we are reading. Sad to say, the media is not a trustworthy source. I mean not even the fbi or american government know who did this, everyone are just grabbing at straws

Luceylou, which is the trustworthy source that told you there are no trustworthy sources?

Ah the only person to be trusted is your own instincts. as the tv show survivor says trust no one. from my own experiences i have found this to be true. That is a good question, and i hope ive answered it adequally. please help anyone one who has a better answer!! I find it better to be sure of all the evidence, gather it all together in my mind and then make a desicion based on that. If you cant find the evidence to back something up then its untrustworthy, simple

good question my friend. there are no trustworthy sources. i have simply come to that desicion based on my own evaluations of the conflicting news stories. This is not the first time i have come across differing stories in the media in the last week, and so i think that trust no one unless there is the evidece, and what you read in the papers is not allways the truth, it has been twisted to make a good story. It was a good and difficult question and i hope ive answered ok. ive tried anyway!!

You certainly get credit for trying to answer the question, as it's essentially unanswerable: how can you expect anyone to trust you when you yourself tell us not to trust anyone?.

That being said, all media is prone to being distorted, and it's good to remind people of it, particularly when they think they're immune to it because they got upset about it the last time. I remember during the Gulf War how there seemed to be a presumption that the Western news media were giving a broadly honest rendition of events because it was inconcievable that the entirety of the press corps could be manipulated, whereas the Iraqi media was transparently a propaganda tool. In fact, the Western media was being manipulated, and it was done so skilfully that even President Bush was blissfully unaware that the Patriot missile was an abject failure, to name but one example.

GOING back to the original inquiry -The allegation of CNN pictures (of palestinians celebrating the attacks on the USA) being OLD footage or of a different event is an Internet hoax.

The scotching of this suggestion can be found on two sites about Urban Legends and it is even stated where it originated and that the initiator of this story about faked pictures has retracted

The so called Nostradamus prophecy is just moonshine too.

Look "ABOUT" you - there are up to a dozen now discredited stories to be found which have followed the tragic events.

But it's true that Salvador Dali designed the Chupa Chips wrapper - or is it.........

In this instance, you DO NOT BLINDLY TRUST the story that the CNN footage is a hoax ... you allow the possibility that it is one, or maybe not. But suppose more than one person came out and said they too found the original footage that the scene was supposedly shot from... if you know those people personally, well enough to know they won't lie to you, then you have grounds for believing the story. But the best possible grounds would be if you can yourself see the original footage, in context, where you can see it's about a different event, and you can also compare it to the CNN footage to verify that it is the same scene.

I don't think CNN would fake it, BECAUSE: if it was possible for anyone at all to do the above and prove beyond a doubt that they had faked the scene, they would be in BIG TROUBLE. I don't think they're stupid enough to take such a risk.

I can accept that some Palestinians might have felt joy when they first heard the news. There *are* Palestinians that are *very much* opposed to the USA. And there *are* people who do find joy in hearing about 'victories' that cause great damage to their 'enemies'. Like someone said, people also celebrated when America dropped the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which act killed 200 000 Japanese, civilians - men, women, children ... while they were busy with their lives, suspecting nothing ... and many only died long afterwards from radiation poisoning, and many children were born deformed and so on.

So I can see how there might have been Palestinians celebrating, especially because the news and pictures of the full scope of the human suffering had then not yet been fully released.

I think it was unethical to emphasise the celebrations though.

I think many of those Palestinians would probably have felt differently if afterwards they watched the scenes and came to the realisation that it was real human beings that were hurt and killed. I don't think Palestinians are devoid of feelings of human compassion.

A few question remain.

Why show footage of a group of youngsters too young to understand the enormity of the atrocity they were allegedly celebrating.

The two low-life adults in the pictures were obviously a few sausages short of a BBQ.

It would be illuminating to find out the nationality of the camera person and whether or not money changed hands.

I think there's another question which is rather more significant: why did Yasser Arafat feel the need to issue an edict to his people telling them not to congregate or rejoice?

Incidentally, it would most definitely *not* be illuminating to discover the nationality of the camera person, unless one wished to infer guilt by ethnicity.

I guess it could be embarrassing to the citizens of certain countries if the identity of the camera person became public knowledge.

As would be which countries currency (if any) was used?

Well, either you know the answer - in which case there's no harm in sharing it with us - or you don't, in which case you seem to be hypothecating intrigue based on, er... nothing. What's the deal?

A quiet evening in New Zealand