Monday, November 14, 2016

How Anne Barnard's coverage of Syria is unreliable, unprofessional, and downright false

Here is how Anne Barnard reported the reaction of the Syrian regime to Donald Trump, through the reaction of regime propagandist, Buthaina Sha`ban: "Syrian officials generally welcomed the result, and an adviser to Mr. Assad, Bouthaina Shaaban, said the government was ready to work with Mr. Trump."  So untrusting of Anne Barnard on Syria, I decided to unearth the original interview to see what Sha`ban had actually said. Here is what she said as carried by RT (my translation):  "Al-Watan newspaper cited Sha`ban as saying..."Damascus hopes that US in the administration of Trump becomes an active member in the war on terrorism.  She added Syria does not interfere in the results of the elections and who won in therm. What matters to Syrians is the policies that will be pursued by the new president....IF those policies are consistent with the aspirations of Syria, then Syria is open to cooperation with the US and other countries which respect the sovereignty of states and interests of people and does not interfere in their affairs...And Asad said in an interview on November 3rd, "We don't trust their words. They are not honest, regardless what they say, whether it is good or bad".  How this becomes in the reporting of Anne Barnard "Syrian officials generally welcomed the result" is beyond me.  But I know how Western correspondents like her report: they basically follow whatever cheerleaders of the Syrian rebels are writing in English and reproduce them. They never question what they write, and here she--not for the first time--fell in the trap of trusting Syrian rebel media and their cheerleaders.  Notice that Barnard never once mentioned the love festival for Trump being produced daily in the mouthpiece of King Salman, Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat. Because that does not appear on the pages of cheerleaders of Syrian rebels on social media.