CNN blamed for using misleading war video

[December]

Here we go again....

From RT:

American broadcaster CNN has been accused of using the wrong pictures in their coverage of the conflict in South Ossetia. A Russian cameraman says footage of wrecked tanks and ruined buildings, which was purported to have been filmed in the town of Gori, in fact showed the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali.

Source: http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/28880/video

[December]

CNN's Gelnn Beck will interview Saakashvili TODAY. His program airs at 7:00 PM.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/ingenterprises/glenn_beck_jacket.jpg

CNN's Glenn Beck

CNN's rodeo clown

by Eric Boehlert

The bad news last week was that Glenn Beck, the right-wing radio talker and self-described "rodeo clown" who broadcasts nightly on CNN Headline News, hosted a world-is-flat special about the "myths" surrounding global warming. In it, Beck rounded up the usual ban of discredited, oil industry-friendly "experts" who announced that the looming atmospheric crisis is overblown, and that far from being a consensus, serious scientists still disagree on the matter.

"I'm a rodeo clown who happens to have a radio and TV show," Beck recently announced. Beck uses the rodeo clown shtick relentlessly (it's listed under "occupation" on his MySpace page), as he works overtime to assure viewers he's an undereducated, unsung hero with no journalism background. He's just an Average Joe who, by the way, produces 60-minute, prime-time news specials for CNN.

READ MORE -- http://mediamatters.org/columns/200705080004

[December]

Some Georgians already questioning their "president"


From Guardian:

Maybe he was thinking somebody would help us. But nobody did help us," Bacho Janashia, a 24-year-old student said. "We hope Saakashvili disappears from Georgia. He's a bastard."

The cost of Georgia's ill-fated adventure against Vladimir Putin was beginning to sink in. Many blamed Georgia's president Mikhail Saakashvili — querying why he had taken on mighty Moscow given Georgia's military inferiority and the improbability of US intervention.

"Saakashvili has to resign. There is no other way," Misha Iashvili said, stopping to mend his truck next to a roadside café. Its owners had gone, locking up and leaving behind their neat dahlia garden. He added: "Russia had been close to us for years. It will defend us. The US and Europe won't."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/12/georgia.russia8


Saakashvilli just cannot think clearly. It seems like he has some mental problems...


Georgian "President" Saakashvili loses presence of mind

http://www.russiatoday.com/media/news/3/48a196cfb3bc1.jpg

President Saakashvili was forced to the ground by over-protective bodyguards during the visit of the French Foreign minister in Tbilisi on Monday. Note that the cameraman's hands didn't shake and he managed to film the panic outburst professionally.



http://www.russiatoday.com/media/image/9/48a1962f91403.jpg

Saakashvili welcomes the French and Finnish
foreign ministers at Tbilisi airport which was
earlier claimed to be 'ruined' by Russian
air forces. The nation's leader seems to be
enjoying himself while fighting is underway
just several kilometres away.




http://www.russiatoday.com/media/image/a/48a1963c952bc.jpg

The President keeps looking up...
Suddenly, he seems to have detected
something in the sky, putting an end to the
improvised open air news conference.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWlQ_fzECl4



Source -- http://www.russiatoday.com/features/news/28883

http://www.russiatoday.com/features/news/28883/video

[xLIBREx]

You source if PRAVDA? Seriously, Pravda? LMFAO

And let me get this straight, your complaint is that CNN reported the wrong town, but still got the shattered buildings and wrecked building right? Umm, OK? That's like a gang member claiming he is innocent because he is being accused of shooting someone in the right arm when he is certain he shot them in the left arm. Too funny.

And since when did a strong libertarian like Glenn Beck become "right wing?"

[apdst]

I watched the video. It looked like Gori to me.

[December]

You source if PRAVDA? Seriously, Pravda? LMFAO

No. Why did you ask? Did you watch the video?

[PostmodernProphet]

so we have one Russian camera man who says it isn't so.....and a dozen international news networks with a variety of films showing it is....who should we believe?.....

[December]

Foreign minister blasts coverage of conflict

By NICK HOLDSWORTH

Russian deputy foreign minister Grigory Karasin has accused Western media orgs of bias in their coverage of the Georgia fighting, but U.S. and U.K. TV execs are unfazed, saying that claims of bias are “bananas.”

Within Russia, TV and newspaper reports of the conflict have overshadowed coverage of the Olympics, with patriotic and emotional reportage on the conflict that Russia blames on the Georgians.

Russians with access to the Internet or international cable news, however, are able to piece together a fairly thorough picture of the conflict. Citizens in Georgia are not able to do that, since their government shut down broadcasts of Russian TV and has blocked websites in the .ru domain.

On Tuesday, the two sides agreed to a truce brokered by French prexy Nicolas Sarkozy after five days of air and ground attacks. But Georgian officials said bombs were still dropping hours after Russia declared the cease-fire, according to the Associated Press.

During the past few days, Russia’s state television — brought firmly under Kremlin control during the eight years that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ruled as president — has been running rolling news updates on the heavy fighting, interspersed with highly emotive photos of ethnic Russian refugee women and children shown to the accompaniment of classical music.

So far, there has been no mention of the Russian aerial bombardment of the Georgian town of Gori, where bombs intended for military barracks hit a school and apartment blocks, killing scores of civilians.

But international news coverage seemed equally one-sided.

Coverage in the U.S. and Europe is leaning heavily toward reports on the Georgian casualties of Russian bombing over the weekend. Few details are being given about the thousands said to have been killed when Georgia attacked Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, on Thursday and Friday. A Georgian military campaign to defeat insurgents there caused the deaths of 15 Russian peacekeepers last week. Russia retaliated forcefully, sending tanks, artillery and troops into South Ossetia.

Part of the international media’s sympathy for Georgia is due to widespread confusion over the background to the conflict, which has roots going back to the breakup of the Soviet Union. In addition, many reporters — even those who specialize in Russia and Central Europe — have little knowledge of the Ossetia and Georgia regions. And coverage of the conflict has been hampered by the swiftness with which the violence escalated. Nine journalists have been reported injured, including a Russian TV producer shot on Sunday and at least two Georgian journalists killed.

Many news orgs had mobilized their foreign correspondents for Olympics coverage. After the conclusion of the Games’ spectacular Opening Ceremony on Friday, bureaus were scrambling to figure out what was going on in Russia, Georgia and Ossetia.

In Russia, state channel Rossiya complained about coverage in the U.S. and British media.

“We want television screens in the West to be showing not only Russian tanks, and texts saying Russia is at war in South Ossetia and with Georgia, but also showing the suffering of the Ossetian people, the murdered elderly people and children, the destroyed towns of South Ossetia and Tskhinvali,” foreign minister Karasin said.

“Western media is a well-organized machine, which is showing only those pictures that fit in well with their thoughts. We find it very difficult to squeeze our opinion into the pages of their newspapers.”

Westerners are quickly trying to catch up and present a fair picture of the conflict.

Chris Birkett, exec editor of satcaster Sky News, told Daily Variety, “I don’t think there’s been a bias. Accusations of media bias are normal in times of war. We’ve been so busy with the task of newsgathering and deployment that the idea we’ve managed to come up with a conspiratorial line in our reporting is bananas.”

CNN defended its reporting in a statement to Daily Variety, saying the network “continues to explain the complex issues surrounding this conflict. Our coverage on the ground in both Georgia and Russia, in the past few days, reflects the importance of accuracy in telling this story.”

ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News did not respond to requests for comment.

Despite the ongoing Olympics, the BBC has led with the war since Saturday.

The conflict also has dominated Blighty’s newspapers with all of the broadsheets — and some tabloids — dedicating their front pages and more to reports and analysis.

While much of the coverage has highlighted the rapidly escalating civilian death toll, some op-ed contributors also have criticized Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili for launching the initial military assault on South Ossetia on Aug. 7.

“Both sides are behaving badly,” wrote Caucasus expert and former Times Moscow correspondent Thomas de Waal in the left-leaning Observer. “It is outrageous that Russia is seizing the chance to attack Georgian towns and airfields. Georgian civilians are now dying too. But Georgia needs to be restrained for its own sake.”

A reporter for Russia Today — a Kremlin-funded news channel that is broadcast in English — resigned over what he claimed was biased coverage by the outlet.

William Dunbar, who was reporting for Russia Today from Georgia, claimed he had not been on air since he mentioned Russian bombing of targets inside Georgia on Saturday.

“I had a series of live, video satellite links scheduled for later that day and they were canceled by Russia Today,” he told the Moscow Times. “The real news, the real facts of the matter, didn’t conform to what they were trying to report, and therefore, they wouldn’t let me report it. I felt that I had no choice but to resign,” he added.

Sources at Russia Today — which has a newsroom largely staffed by British journalists — confirmed that Dunbar had resigned but said allegations of bias were nonsense.

“The Russian coverage I have seen has been much better than much of the Western coverage,” one senior journalist at the channel told Daily Variety.

“My view is that Russia Today is not particularly biased at all. When you look at the Western media, there is a lot of genuflection towards the powers that be. Russian news coverage is largely pro-Russia, but that is to be expected.”

So far, one Western media professional, a Dutch TV cameraman for RTL, has been killed in the fighting — during a Russian bombing of Gori, Georgia, which also wounded an RTL correspondent in the leg.

(Ali Jaafar in London, John Hopewell in Madrid, Ed Meza in Berlin and Patrick Frater in Hong Kong contributed to this report.)

[PostmodernProphet]

you know, December has over 3000 posts....and I can't remember him ever answering a question.......

[December]

Filthy, filthy american media....

Fox News cuts American child for thanking Russian troops

http://www.russiatoday.com/media/news/5/48a5ac959d7ac.jpg

VIDEO -- http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/29075/video

A 12-year-old American girl visiting relatives during the conflict in South Ossetia has thanked Russian soldiers for saving her from the Georgian attack. However, America’s Fox News attempted to cut her and her aunt off air.

Amanda Kokoeva was in a cafe in Tskhinvali when the firing from Georgian troops began.

She managed to get back to her uncle's basement where she spent the night. In a lull, she then managed to flee across the border to Russia, before boarding a plane bound for San Francisco.

"I want to say that I was running from Georgian troops bombing the city,” she told America’s Fox News Channel. “I want to say thank you to the Russian troops that were helping us out."

After that her aunt started saying that it was Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili who is to be blamed for the bloodshed, but the presenter tried to cut her off and go to a commercial break. Still, he finally let the woman finish the phrase at least.

Moscow has already called the incident a violation of the journalistic ethics.

http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/29075

[PostmodernProphet]

they had to pay for the flight out somehow, I'm sure.....