Hello Everybody and welcome to this news experiment. In order to get the best from it, I advise
that you watch the news report that I’ve linked to this video and then spend a few moments
thinking about what the report is actually telling us and then come back to this video
where we can compare notes.
If you don’t have the time to watch the report first, that’s ok
because we will be going through the report in this experiment, but you will deny yourself
the opportunity to spend those moments thinking about the report before continuing with the experiment.
I’ve chosen this particular video for three reasons. Firstly, it’s old now. It was first
broadcast in July in 2015, so time has given us the opportunity to see how insightful or
otherwise the report actually is.
Secondly, the report focuses on a city called ‘Lataikia’,
which is a city in Syria that I know quite well. I’ve visited it four times
and lived there twice: once before the conflict and once during.
And thirdly, I’ve chosen this report because, in my opinion,
it demonstrates a number of examples
of what is wrong with modern-day journalism.
So, let’s crack on.
Tonight, Elizabeth Palmer has a rare look inside Syria, which has been devastated by
four years of civil war. Two hundred and ten thousand people have been killed; most civilians.
The fighting is right on the dictator’s doorstep, but you wouldn’t know that inside
Bashar Al-Assad’s shrinking world.
The lead-in to any news report is vitally important,
because the human mind is actually quite bad at differentiating
between copy and confirmation,
so even though we know something has come from the same source,
if it's come from two different voices,
we somehow see that as a form of confirmation.
So it’s worth taking a look at what this man actually says.
So he starts off by talking about a rare look
inside Syria, which suggests: secrecy, something to hide, something suspicious.
The truth is that foreign journalists have been going into and out of Syria
since well before the conflict started
and certainly by the time this was broadcast in 2015, there were enough YouTube
videos and blogs from independent journalists and others to give a great idea of what actually
was going on inside of Syria.
He then talks about civil war, civilians and dictator;
thus, making very clear what the dividing lines are.
And the he mentions the shrinking world of Assad
and that’s really what the point of this report is all about.
He wants to indicate that Assad’s regime is crumbling.
So the scene is set, let the performance begin.
There are few places left in Syria where a good shot has nothing to do with guns.
This is Latakia, on the Mediterranean. One of the last cities in the country that’s still
under full government control. If you’re a Syrian and can afford it,
this is where you come for your summer vacation
and to block out Syria’s vicious war that is creeping ever closer.
There are two quite striking characteristics
of this particular part of the report. This first is: She doesn’t actually talk to anybody
on the beach. We have no way of knowing if she is telling the truth. We just have to
take her word for it. Secondly, she is incredibly vague about her facts. She talks about “few
places”, “one of the last remaining cities” and “creeping ever closer”.
It is this vague expression of facts that you will see runs through the entire report.
Let’s continue.
Less than fifty miles away extremist fighters took the city
of Jisr Al-Shugur ( جسر الشغور‎‎) in May.
Rebel Groups now control large areas of countryside.
So here again we have these vague references
‘Less than 50 miles’ ‘large areas of countryside’.
Notice also the use of ‘extremist fighters’ and ‘rebel groups’.
Nowhere in this report does anyone use the word...
‘terrorist’.
Only half and hour’s drive out of Latakia,
we found one of the Syrian army posts holding the line.
We weren’t allowed to film their fighting positions; just soldiers checking traffic
for rebel sympathisers and weapons.
Beyond this Syrian army checkpoint is contested territory. There are armed opposition groups
on three sides. They’re on the mountain behind me, they’re further up the road and
they are that way, too.
The Syrian military: Tired and overstretched
doesn’t like to admit it, but things are not going well. Over the past year, they’ve
lost ground to ISIS and a whole patchwork of extremist groups.
And so, once again, we have these vague references, but also with a twist now; in that she is
talking about 'time', so we have no way of being able to make a like-for-like comparison,
and therefore we have no way of knowing where either side actually is and when you consider
that is the entire point of this news report, well, at best, it’s a missed opportunity.
She then also talks about the Syrian military being tired and overstretched and, again,
there is absolutely no evidence that she presents. We just have to take her word for it.
But then she starts talking about the checkpoints and she says that ‘we found’ these checkpoints,
which indicates that she’s just stumbled across them; that, maybe they weren’t there
previously or that they’re just makeshift or in place suddenly due to panic or in an emergency.
In fact the checkpoints have been around in
Syria since 2011 when I lived there.
They are no indication of the Syrian army winning or losing.
They are just there as a precaution
and it is what any government would do under the same circumstances.
Let’s continue.
The Hyack family home near the checkpoint is, so far, in government territory.
But Hyack tells me his son’s school, just a mile away, has fallen to the opposition.
“What would happen if you went?” “Not a chance,” he says, “the snipers would get us.”
Latakia’s city centre is still bustling with life.
But everyone here, just like the people on the beach,
is afraid that the little pockets of remaining stability
are on borrowed time.
Elizabeth Palmer CBS News. Latakia.
And that’s the end of the experiment.
I hope you found it useful or, at the very least, interesting.
Did I miss anything in my analysis of the report?
What do you think of the report and my analysis of it?
Leave your comments in the box below
Thanks for watching.
Bye-bye.