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Fake News: How the BBC is culpable in failing its standards.

Headline today on BBC.com

Syria government ‘producing chemical weapons at research facilities’

An excerpt from the article:
“A document says chemical and biological munitions are produced at three main sites near Damascus and Hama.
It alleges that both Iran and Russia, the government’s allies, are aware.
Western powers say a Syrian warplane dropped bombs containing the nerve agent Sarin on an opposition-held town a month ago, killing almost 90 people.”

Full Article

Any reasonable person would understand that the alleged attack resulted in the loss of 90 lives as a result of the use of chemical weapons. The use of language can be very misleading. 7 is the number of deaths resulting from symptoms described as being consistent with the effects of exposure to a “Sarin-like” chemical.

Originally the BBC claimed that Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) confirmed these 7 deaths and their symptoms. This was then changed to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Who allowed the MSF’s name to be used? Why was it subsequently withdrawn? Possibly to cite a trusted institution to propagate such propaganda? What is the OPCW other than an official sounding acronym designed to sound trustworthy and credible by readers of the BBC?

Brown-nosing Bullshit Committee

Syria and Russia both have said that the release of chemicals was due to the presence of chemical weapons in the rebel arsenal, the target of the attack. These rebels are Al Qaeda, The Nusra Front and ISIS. These rebels must be laughing their socks off.

The clear situation is that the BBC simply does not know. It does not have journalists on the ground there.

It should be made very clear that, much as the BBC has a very good reputation for its standards of News Coverage, these standards have fallen drastically. Two reasons stand out:

Budget Cuts and the fact that the BBC reports to Parliament.

Belittling British Consciousness

Syria has been subjected to the most incredible array of external attacks, internal attacks, sanctions, accusations of wholesale genocide and so the list goes on.

In this case, the whole accusation levelled at Syria by the BBC is based upon this spurious piece of reporting towards the end of the article:
“The intelligence information about the suspected weapons manufacturing sites was shared with the BBC on condition the agency providing it would not be named.
It does not give detail about how the alleged evidence was gathered.”

Blatantly Baseless Claims

To make matters worse for the BBC, they also rely upon a group called: ‘Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.’ This is a one-man operation in the UK. It has zero credibility as a source of News.

Meanwhile, the BBC still refers to the Syrian disaster as a ‘Civil War’ – such blatant misreporting seems to go unchecked. It is, hence, small wonder that the west has such skewed views of ‘Truth’.

‘Truth’ is not an absolute concept. We do, however, expect institutions such as the BBC to uphold values of ‘Integrity’ and ‘Objectivity’.

Sadly, we have to realise, that we cannot trust the BBC’s coverage of the Syrian Crisis. Questions are therefore pitched at the entire organisation.

Bollocks By Collusion

Notice to Readers: The author of this article is British and is appalled.

All Rights Reserved. ©Edward Bryans 2017. No unauthorised reproduction of this post in whole or in part is permitted without the express written consent of the author