Posted on November 27, 2016
[ Ed. note – Once there was a time when Democracy Now! was considered the go-to program for reliable alternative news, views, and information. Sadly, this doesn’t seem to be the case any more. That, at any rate, is the take you are likely come away with after reading the very informative article below by Vanessa Beeley.
Specifically, Beeley focuses on a recent Democracy Now! segment hosted by Nermeen Shaikh during which two guests she interviewed promoted the US propaganda line about Russia and the Syrian “regime” bombing hospitals. Toxic remarks of this nature drag on for some 20 minutes as Shaikh fails to challenge their assertions or to ask for evidence. You might think her failure in this regard is a lone, chance aberration in what otherwise has been a steady and consistent streaming of “progressive” programming coming out of Democracy Now.
But alas, Beeley documents instances in which similar narratives have been promoted on the show in the past, including a segment that aired in October in which the program hailed the White Helmets as “rescue workers saving thousands of lives,” this while at the same time touting a Netflix documentary on the Western-funded group.
The documentary was released during the lead-up to the announcing of this year’s Nobel Prize winners, and a number of mainstream media outlets took pains to promote it. You can go here to access a Wall Street Journal report on the White Helmets that was posted on the same day the documentary was released by Netflix, and you can go hereto view Democracy Now’s segment on it. Ironically, the latter program includes the documentary’s trailer, aired in its entirety, which takes up more than two minutes of the segment’s air time!
Odd, is it not, to find Democracy Now and the Wall Street Journal basically on the same page promoting a Western-backed organization that has been linked to terrorists operating in Syria? We seem to be swimming in a massive disinformation campaign that cuts across the entire spectrum of media, from mainstream to “alternative,” or what was once considered such and probably to a great many still is.
Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of Beeley’s article is an email exchange with Democracy Now News Producer Laura Gottesdiener, who apparently gives more credence to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights than to journalists like Beeley, who have reported on the conflict from inside Syria.
Below is an excerpt from the article. ]
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By Vanessa Beeley | November 26, 2016
“A closer look at what Goodman’s “Democracy Now” is reporting on Syria shows that the purported critical broadcaster has become a purveyor of Western government propaganda. While the mainstream media’s propaganda function is obvious to the informed public, Goodman’s “Democracy Now” plays a more subtle role. Camouflaged with the trappings of critical, independent journalism, “Democracy Now” serves to sow powerful seeds of misinformation in a way that the “compromised” mainstream media cannot.” ~ Finian Cunningham 2012
“As the United Nations says nearly 1 million Syrians are living under siege and the last remaining hospitals in eastern Aleppo have been destroyed.” ~ Democracy Now! November 2016
Last night, Democracy Now! released a report that was breathtaking in the saturation of NATO aligned propaganda in this one segment out of their almost six year criminal, media campaign against Syria and the sovereign will of its people. In the first line alone, we have the ubiquitous and now hugely discredited description of the “last remaining hospitals in eastern Aleppo”.
The East Aleppo “last hospital” litany has become synonymous with corporate media lies. It’s duplicitous and misleading use is clearly demonstrated by this short video collection of the many mainstream media reports on the “last hospital” rendering these corporate media accounts questionable and far from credible.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian 
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!
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