Ingesting Enemy Propaganda

The "fauxtography" scandal of actively doctored or staged photos being contributed by Hezbollah agents to the wire servicers like Reuters and AP during the Israel/hezbollah conflict in Lebanon recently was just the tip of the iceberg.

Jihadist stringers dominate thegathering of new in the Middle East and their propaganda is at best uncritically and at worst gleefully transmitted directly into our newspapers, becoming as good as fact.

Here are other examples.

What is your recent impression of Iraq? Anarchy spiralling out of control, from which our only option is to recoil and retreat?

How about that horrific story of six people being burned alive and four mosques burned down in sectarian strife?

Turnos out that is likely fantasy, made up by insurgent stringers.

And our own news "services" transmit it right to us in a way that would stagger Propaganda Minister Goebbels!

See here, where Flopping Aces investigates in detail the "source" of these anarchy stories:

The U.S. military said Saturday that Iraqi soldiers securing the Hurriyah area had found only one burned mosque and could not confirm reports that six Sunni civilians had been burned to death with kerosene.

I mean the only think I can take away from this report that has a ring of truth to it is the fact that the US and Iraqi forces engaged the enemy north of town killing up to 60 more of the enemy.
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But it appears that our MSM is getting the “anarchy” stories from the enemy themselves. That cannot be trusted. I mean the big story yesterday was these six burned alive and now no one can find any evidence that this happened except the word of the enemy.
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Doing a search via Google I began reading the stories printed about the burned six and each and every one had one thing in common. The only person stating that this incident happened was one Capt. Jamil Hussein. Every news report printed this man as the source of the information.

This Capt. Hussein is not authorized to speak officially!

And it turns out that this "source" has been responsible for a string of atrocity and anarchy stories dating back to the Spring -- with no other journalistic support than the word of this single unauthorized spokesperson.

This is responsible journalism? Flopping Aces continues:

His name is mentioned quite a bit when Sunni’s are attacked it seems.

Further work received this response from CENTCOM

Unfortunately, people posing as government officials often do call the media to make statements.

We have no confirmation that this event happened; so it is very likely that this is not a legitimate source. In addition, of the four mosques that were suppose to have been burned/destroyed at that time; we only confirmed one mosque was damaged by a fire that lasted an hour and then was extinguished with no casualties.
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MOI [Ministry of Interior?] has apparently issued an edict that no one below the level of Chief can speak to the media. We have reminded AP of this but without proof that these spokesman are not employees, they have pretty much ignored us. (If you were a reporter, would who give up a primo source because of rank? Probably not.)
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Of note, we definitely know that one IP [Iraqi Police] spokesman - Lt. Maithem Abdul Razzaq of the city’s Yarmouk police station (a.k.a. police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq) is not authorized to speak on behalf of the IP and the MOI supposedly issued a warrant for his questioning.

Mark Twain has said,

I am personally acquainted with hundreds of journalists, and the opinion of the majority of them would not be worth tuppence in private, but when they speak in print it is the newspaper that is talking (the pygmy scribe is not visible) and then their utterances shake the community like the thunders of prophecy.

And,

Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.