Thursday, March 29, 2012

Anne Barnard has a scoop

So Anne Barnard thinks that she has a scoop.  She "reports":  "with civilians affiliated with President Bashar al-Assad’s minority religious sect shooting at their onetime neighbors as the military presses what many Sunnis see as a campaign to force them to flee their homes and villages in some sections of the country."  Well, Anne.  Here is the thing.  There are tons of reporters in Lebanon:  most of them are opposed to the Syrian regime because they work for Saudi or Hariri channels and they talk to those refugees in Arabic daily and none of them report the story that you are reporting.  None of them.  So according to your story, the minority sect in Syria (13% or so of the population) have decided to sectarianly cleanse the 78% of the population who are Sunnis?  That makes sense to you?  And they report "civilians affiliated with...`Alawites".  How were they able to know that those armed goons are `Alawites when the armed goons of the regime have come from all sects?  Defections remain minuscule.  Wait: did they recognize them as `Alawites because of hooked noses and tales that tell `Alawites apart?  Please inform us here.   But she confirmed their accounts:  "Their accounts reinforce reports from activists reached inside Syria by telephone and e-mail of displacement along sectarian lines, and interviews with people in Syria."  So the same Syrian opposition people in Lebanon who work closely with the Hariri family (which basically "manages" those refugees in Lebanon and put them in touch with Western reporters and provide them with its own translators) also put you in touch with people in Syria?  What a smooth and objective operation operation you run, Anne.  If only this method can be taught in journalism schools.  If Palestinians were to made such claims about Israeli occupiers, the New York Times would never ever allow a word to be printed.