Around the world, state-funded satellite TV stations—like Russia Today (RT), Iran’s Press TV, China’s CCTV, France 24 and Al Jazeera—are broadcasting world news as they see it. That means that millions are hearing stories from new perspectives, and stories like the death of Osama Bin Laden can vary dramatically, depending on which channel you’re watching.
So let’s say that, on Sunday night, you were watching Russia’s RT. As Barack Obama was making his “Osama is dead” announcement in the East Room, RT was airing its news talk show Cross Talk with host Peter Lavelle: The subject: the Republican field of U.S. presidential candidates, with a special emphasis on Donald Trump. There was no interruption to bring you the actual president, announcing his momentous news. There were no cameras showing the celebratory scene outside the White House. There was nothing at all to indicate that RT’s U.S. headquarters are located in Washington, D.C., just blocks from Lafayette Square.
It was not until shortly after midnight that RT viewers saw a ticker appear on screen announcing what was by then old news: Osama Bin Laden was dead.
The next day RT lent its peculiar brand of skepticism to coverage of the story. The channel’s main message was that America’s war on terror was not over, and that Bin Laden’s death was “irrelevant.” One RT guest said Al Qaeda’s membership numbered in no more than the hundreds—a movement too small to execute attacks as sophisticated as the bombings carried out in recent years in Moscow’s subway and main airport.
“The bigger question,” said Washington correspondent Gayenne Chichakayene, “is how much terror has the war (on terror) instigated ever since it started.”
There was more. Guest Christoph Horstel—identified by RT as a business and political consultant, and a self-identified “old Afghan hand”—called the burial of Bin Laden’s body a “mafia-style” dump. The U.S., he said, presented very little evidence that Bin Laden had actually been killed, echoing an earlier comment from Chichakayene that “no credible image” had been released to show Bin Laden was dead.
Of course, the photographic evidence point has also been raised in U.S. media, and by many others around the world. But there’s a difference between a healthy skepticism and the more cynical, not-so-subtle anti-American take you so often hear on RT. In fact, as my fellow students and I learned in reporting this spring on the proliferation of state-funded, twenty-four-hour global TV news channels, global news has become something of a “buyer beware” market.
Our Global Media Wars report on five of those channels concludes that, while there are some strong new offerings—Al Jazeera English in particular—some are just simply not worth watching. And there’s nothing like the big, global story of Bin Laden’s death to illustrate that.
On Sunday night, for example, RT was not alone in moving slowly to report the news. Iran’s Press TV was running a piece about a computer game festival in Tehran while other channels reported live on what had been learned about Bin Laden. When it did report on the death, Press TV—fully funded and controlled by the Iranian government—offered analysis from guests such as Webster Tarpley, author of 9/11: Synthetic Terror, who said that Bin Laden had been killed years ago. The U.S. was only announcing it now in order to bolster the popularity of Obama and initiate conflict “in the collapse phase” of the U.S. empire.
“I’m afraid,” said Tarpley, “that the door to a false flag terror operation staged by the U.S, the British, and NATO…is wide open. It will simply be attributed to Al Qaeda…it will be explained as promoted by Pakistan or some other country the U.S. wishes to target.”
Not all channels questioned the president’s credibility. China’s CCTV, a global channel all in English, was quick to accept that U.S. forces had efficiently used “facial recognition techniques” to identify Bin Laden, and called his death a “major accomplishment for President Obama and his national security team.”
What CCTV lacked was any coverage of the global discussion around Bin Laden’s death.
Weak. You piss on RT's "peculiar brand of skepticism," yet offer nothing to disprove or discredit RT's conclusions. Apparently, in your mind, anything that questions the glorious U.S. govt is not worthy. How sickening. And speaking of state-"funded" and state-controlled news: you left out NPR, VoA, WaPo, the AP, the NYT, et al., whose glowing reports of govt heroism surely would have made the grade in your mind. Epic fail.
#1 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Thu 5 May 2011 at 03:26 PM
How about "I seen it on CIA TV?"
[Questions Abound Over How Fake Bin Laden Photos Duped Lawmakers
By Cristina Corbin Published May 05, 2011 FoxNews.com
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the intelligence committee, still claims to have viewed the official photos.
Rogers spokeswoman Susan Phalen told FoxNews.com that Rogers was shown the images by members of the CIA.
"He happened to be at the CIA on Monday and he saw the photos there,” Phalen said in an interview. “It was not something that was emailed. He saw the photos that were in the custody of the CIA.”]
#2 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Thu 5 May 2011 at 05:24 PM
It's difficult to believe that Obama would be stupid enough to take credit for Osama's death unless he had absolute knowledge of Osama's demise or he had total control over him in a secret place of detention. Nonetheless, it doesn't take a genius to realize that the whole thing about Obama giving the order to take out Osama was a farce. Most likely Osama was already on a slab waiting to be picked up by our guys. The fact is that nine years ago Osama fled Afghanistan into Pakistan and has been hiding there successfully ever since. Our government couldn't find him until the Osama's henchmen gave up his body after he died of natural causes. How embarrassing is that? The DNA bubbamises is a feeble attempt to divert attention from the real story that Osama's people made a deal to hand over his body for the 25 million dollar reward and other considerations. Obama needed the drama because his approval ratings have been in the toilet so he staged the phony raid after receiving proof that the carcass was really Osama's. Getting rid of the body in quick time, claiming to have DNA verification, announcing that there are classified video footage and photographs and then refusing to show this so-called evidence all leads me to conclude that if they had Osama's body it was already decomposed to the extent that everyone could see that Osama had been dead for much more than a couple of hours. More at http://moshesharon.wordpress.com
#3 Posted by Moshe Sharon, CJR on Fri 6 May 2011 at 03:36 PM
Lear:
It were a delicate stratagem to shoe
A troop of horse with felt: I'll put't in proof;
And when I have stol'n upon these sons-in-law,
Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!
Except for one detail, Moshe, your account rings true.
But how about the felt-sheathed Black Hawks?
It is a CIA device right out of central casting.
#4 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Fri 6 May 2011 at 06:16 PM
I think the lack of cut-aways is just a symptom of what makes state media different. Unlike corporate news which can make mistakes and corrections, the stakes are higher when the story needs to represent the national interest. What I'm saying is, it takes a while to call the press guy over at your government's foreign office at 10pm EST on a Sunday to figure out what the right reaction is going to be for a story this big.
#5 Posted by Antoine Dodson, CJR on Sun 8 May 2011 at 03:42 PM