Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Speed of the Internet - Twitter Journalism

When you want to pass a news information unless you are sure about your source try to avoid, if you can't avoid say that you cannot confirm as to put your reader/ viewer in a position not to make any decision based upon your unverified piece of information, that's all just to keep your credibility.


We told them Syria is different, they didn't believe and thought they can copy their success in destabilizing and destructing decades long serving regimes in the region onto Syria, we warned them, but they insisted on their plan, so we tell them: You will reap what you sow.


In one of the ways Syria is different any mishandling of an event in Syria will deface the person mishandling it, in particular, if the way you are mishandling was intended not to pass an info as much as you want to fuel a crisis, the worst mishandling is when that fueling results in losing lives of innocents who based their judgments on the information passed by such 'professional journalists'.


This is a second post in regards with how a CNN anchor Ms. Hala Gorani deals with the current events in Syria where we cannot understand how fast Ms. Gorani responds to adopt news of negative value towards the Syrian Government while hesitate in even mentioning any positive news towards the govt. or any person who feels he or she deserves to see the truth and verified information on an internationally well known news station and not to be silenced by the anchor in a sarcastic way, our first blog is here: http://democratic-syria.blogspot.com/2011/07/professionalism-of-cnn-anchor-ms-hala.html 


Today we will see another instant of a news but this time on a magnitude scale that might cause a sect of people to divide and have internal clashes and more intended to cause a crack in the Syrian army between officers serving under the former minister of defense and the officers serving under the new minister forgetting that the loyalty of a Syrian soldier comes first to the country Syria and second to the leader of the army the president and unlike other armies Syrian Army Soldiers and Officers loyalty is unshakable which explains that despite over 5 months not a single brigade or even an officer of importance has defected from the army!!


The instant goes as follows: Ms. Gorani tweets: "Seeing reports Ali Habib, the Defense Minister Assad sacked yesterday, was found dead/died in his home.  


Seeing reports Ms. Gorani? Is this a new trend in journalism? You see reports then you deliver a news of this magnitude? Forget that the person mentioned in your tweet is holding the second rank in the Syrian Army, forget that he was the deputy head of the armed force in Syria, forget that he was a hero throughout his career, keep aside he's one of the most decorated officers, leave all that aside, how about his family? His home city people? Or was your information intended to cause damage to all of that? I hope I'm wrong.






Ms. Gorani of course didn't mention in her tweet why the former minister was replaced and chose the word 'Sacked', that might not be wrong but using this word itself gives a hidden message that the minster was punished due to loyalty doubts or at least bad conduct, while the majority of Syrian people know the fact the former minister Mr. Habib was having health issues and the time of crisis in Syria would require full attention he's not capable of right now as lives are being lost on daily basis from civilians and army officers all over the country. 


When someone brings to her attention in a reply to her first tweet above, that Mr. Habib is not dead and it's confirmed, still Ms. Gorani's journalist professionalism suddenly awakes and inquire for a source?! 
Hala Gorani: "What's the source?  he's alive and it's confirmed"




The well known anchor speeds light in correcting the tweet after speeding the same light in spreading the first rumor only when a prominent reporter Mr. Ian Black confirms the news that Mr. Habib wasn't found dead, she retweets without her sarcastic comments this time:
Hala Gorani: "RT  ali habib, sacked syrian defence minister is "more than alive" according to damascus source who saw him this morning "




Honestly, we are trying to understand what line of journalism does Ms. Gorani follows but obviously it's not a constructive one to a country that did no harm against Ms. Gorani, while it's worth mentioning that a month ago she was personally in Damascus and meeting the deputy foreign minster of Syria Mr. Faisal Miqdad, so why Ms. Gorani don't you refrain yourself from reporting unverified news and news based on seeing reports? We hope Ms. Gorani returns to credible sources especially in a country that faces an internal conflict and that any unverified wrong news might cause lost of lives of innocents.

3 comments:

  1. Naturally, I agree with the point that was made.

    Moving now to a completely different subject, but staying on the topic of reality and news media in Syria, I read the following at http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-08/11/c_131041648.htm President Assad on 10 Aug 2011 met with a delegation of representatives of the governments of India, Brazil and South Africa. The delegation afterwards is reported as having reported that "the process of revision of the constitution would be completed by February/March 2012, al-Assad told the delegation." I have not seen this news at SANA. I have not seen any completion date for revision of the constitution at SANA. In fact, I have not heard any mention of at all of revision of the constitution from Syrian government sources for more than a month. In particular, over the past month there were numerous reports at SANA about the new elections law and the new political parties law -- these laws were approved during the month by the Cabinet, and then by the President, and I think maybe by the Parliament -- but in none of these reports was there any mention of the repeal of Article 8. The repeal of Article 8 is a necessary part of making the new parties and elections laws real laws. The government has not so far talked about Article 8 as such whatsoever.

    This blog, democratic-syria, has been focused on bogus media reports. That's a valid activity. But, at this point, most of us have already had more than a full bellyful of bogus media reports. I already know that 90% of what's at News.Google.com concerning Syria is trash and that the producers of the trash are incorrigible. What I still haven't had enough of is reality in Syria. If anybody knows a place on the Internet were people are talking in English about reality in Syria, please let me know.

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  2. The following video gets the "best of the month" prize for demonstrating the extent to which the Syrian dissidents are willing and able to go to generate fake news. The video shows the dissidents blowing up a minaret with the intention of creating fake evidence that army tanks were firing in an undisciplined way.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDm2fxMBw9g

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  3. Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/3arabiSouri & friends
    On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Amazing.Syria

    We do our best to share only verified news from sources trustworthy as direct families, relatives and friends in different parts of Syria, cross check it with our official sources and apply common sense to it before sharing.

    The official government media is not what it should be, but isn't that the case with all government media?

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