CNN Says the Video is Genuine
Middle East | Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 5:04:03 pm PST
CNN insists that the Gaza video is genuine, and they’ve reposted it. This is their only response to the criticism that the “CPR” shown in the video is an obvious pantomime: Hat tip and link to Little Green Footballs.
Here is the video
I apologize to the two people who left comments in this thread. I accidentally deleted the post and I can not recover the comments with blogger's software.
ReplyDeleteThe anti-CNN amen corner has once again become an echo chamber, evidenced by all the posts like this one found throughout the blogosphere that all assert, seemingly without fear of contradiction, that the "CPR" in the video is obviously a fake. What they see in the package that makes them so sure of themselves will not be as evident to anyone who doesn't share their bias as apparently it is to anyone who does.
ReplyDeleteThe big problem is this: Where does it say in the piece that CPR is shown being administered?
For all we know from all the different versions of the video in circulation, CPR was performed beforehand and off-camera -- assuming that indeed any was performed at all. And if the folks who edited this tape left the impression that CPR was being administered before our eyes, the most that can be said is that they shouldn't have -- if, indeed, they actually did.
In fact, whatever the doctors in the video are seen doing, it's pretty hard to make out, but it looks to me like all they're doing is some sort of cleanup after declaring the boy dead.
So the point is, what good does it do to gather all of the doctors and nurses and EMTs in the world to observe the video and declare that no actual CPR is being done, when the reporter -- much less Channel 4 London and CNN who later picked up the material -- never say anything at all about CPR in the first place?
By the way, the mystery as to why CNN posted the video for 24 hours, then took it down, then reposted it, should be no mystery to anyone who has worked in the business and dealt with usage rights. I would guess, from my own experience, there was initial confusion about whether CNN was allowed unlimited usage of Channel 4's material -- as might be expected in a normal affiliate agreement -- or whether there were further restrictions due to the fact that Channel 4 didn't originate the material themselves but instead bought it from World News & Features.
Apparently CNN was able to clear up its rights issue, then reposted the video, as they themselves indicated in their own response to bloggers in the last few days.
What I also find interesting in all this is the question of why all this fuss is being made about a news story that doesn't even lay the blame for the death of the two boys at the feet of the Israelis. It may arise out rightwinger propensity to so often scream "There be Dragons!!" where, as it so ten turns out, there be nothing but shadows.
In truth, not only has the freelancer's boss at World News & Features defended his integrity as being "independent," but went further in a piece he wrote for BBC in which he relates having met both an Israeli chopper pilot who shoots missiles into Gaza, and a member of a Hamas crew that shoots missiles into Israel, and says of both, "From neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian fighting men could I detect much empathy for the innocent."
But my own conclusion on this so-called "faked" news story: It seems a bunch of people trying to score political points against CNN are doing it by first claiming that the doctors are doing CPR, and then claiming that they're not -- pulling the original straw-man maneuver, and creating a big noise out of nothing but shadows.
Rick
Thanks for you reply. You obviously put a lot of time and thought into it. I must disagree though. The CPR is obviously fake. I know that from my CPR training. Real CPR may have been done earlier, but that part of the video I posted is staged. CNN should not be using staged video.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thanks, but you still failed to address my core point.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I think we both agree upon is that CPR is not being performed on camera -- I've not been trained in CPR but am positive I would know it if I saw it happening, and I don't see it happening here.
What you need to tell us is where the report claims that CPR is being performed. All they say is doctors tried unsuccessfully to revive the boy, which for all we know may have taken place before the cameras were turned on -- attempts that may or may not have involved CPR.
Unless we can find the part where the report claims that what we're looking at is CPR being administered right before our eyes, then there are no grounds for accusing anyone involved of staging any of this.
Once again, please tell me where the report says anything about CPR?
Thanks.
Rick
I am a doctor from the LGF ...duh... you people are idiots.
ReplyDeleteZionists are terrorists and they need to be eradicated.
Death to Zionism, the real terrorists of the world.
All evidence shows Israhell was behind 9/11.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/01/22/bs.holmes.gaza.boy.death.cnn