When we advise you to never believe all the things you see, hear and watch in the mainstream media, we mean business. It is not a joke. You can easily be misled if you don’t go the extra mile to seek alternative news sources.
Many of the news stories in the mainstream media are biased. They serve a particular interest and purpose. A large percentage of the stories within the mainstream media serve the interests of the government, the ownership or advertising companies. You can read more on this in Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.
On March 22 2016, the city of Brussels was shaken by multiple bombing attacks at the airport, and later at the metro station located next to the headquarters of the European Union.
When the attacks happened, the news media, including us, were all busy putting something together to inform our audience about the situation on the ground. For us, in order not to misinform our audience, we were very careful when selecting information from the situation room.
While some media outlets were giving an independent and balanced account of the situation, the Cable News Network (CNN) switched on its propaganda machine. CNN is owned by the Turner Broadcasting System, a division of Time Warner. For whatever reason, the network decided to mislead its audience during the immediate aftermath of the devastating attacks.
As security and emergency service officials were busy trying to save the lives of those injured and take control of the situation, CNN started showing a segment of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) footage, claiming it was from one of the scenes of the attack.
The footage showed a chaotic scene of a smoke-filled subway tube, with people running for their lives. In the video, people were frantically attempting to escape a burning subway, while Chris Cuomo pretended he was a reporter.
CNN then cited a Twitter handle, @OnlinMagazine, as its source of the video. The Free Thought Project later revealed that @OnlinMagazine is a non-existent source.
The Free Thought Project also revealed that the video CNN claimed was from the March 22, 2016 bombings in Brussels, was actually recorded on April 11, 2011 during the bombing of the Minsk Metro in Belarus.
CNN has not retracted and apologized for using the fake video to deceive its teeming audience worldwide. The video is still available for viewing on its YouTube channel. When the attacks happened, many fake videos went viral, especially on social media. At the time of CNN’s broadcast of the fake video, authorities in Brussels had not released any footage of the attacks.
In such highly sensitive situations, CCTV footage is always carefully reviewed before it is released to the public.
Many mainstream media critics have described CNN’s actions as ridiculous. Some have said CNN should do the honorable thing and issue a categorical apology to its audience.
But looking at the situation, it is unlikely that CNN will issue any form of an apology. The best thing for you to do is to never believe all the things in the mainstream media. The mainstream media is there to serve the interests of a number of unseen people. Be aware and stay vigilant!
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This Article (Mainstream Media Lies: CNN Broadcasts 2011 CCTV Footage Claiming It Was The Original Footage Of The Attacks In Brussels) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ.com
THIS may be be situation in the US but other countries’ media got the story right. Alternative news programs in the US regularly cite mainstream media sources outside of the US.
To be honest, I think your media is driven more by ratings which determine advertising profits and ultimately shareholder profits. You get the stories you want to see in the way you want to see them.
“The medium is the message” according to Marshall MacLuhan, and I believe that this is true. But he also said “the subject is the audience”. If you want to change the way AMERICAN media operates, including which stories are told, from which point of view, and how in-depth the coverage is (personally I get dizzy watching so many 30 second stories that I can’t do it), become more involved. Tell them why you are switching channels or nothing will ever change.
It’s local news as well. My son was in an Arson fire, he survived but his girlfriend did not. I have seen several news stories on this incident which has stated two people got out. No one hurt. That is not the case. They have a suspect but no one knows this poor woman died. So who’s at fault here? The Police with their lie or the news people who believed it and never followed up?
I haven’t been able to find any footage resembling the one you say CNN faked under the title Minsk metro bombing ? looks similar but is definitely not the same.
Why didn’t you provide a link to the Minsk bombing so we were sure CNN used the footage ? this seems like a must given the very article ? wouldn’t you think … ?
On further investigation I can confirm that this article is copied word for word from one in the Free Thought Project…except for the part where they retracted their story. CNN in fact used videos from @EurActiv which have been confirmed to have been from the Brussels attacks. The only right thing to do here is to print a retraction.
Yes, other sites also got duped and put this story up. The photo in fact has nothing to do with the CNN coverage. But how ironic that a story about fake news stories is in fact a fake news story.