Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Dirty Tricks at NowHariri

The journalistic ethics of Now Hariri are comparable to the standards of Hearst newspapers in the US early in the 20th century--only worse, and with more lies. They of course have many ways in which they violate the basic ethics of journalism--first they lie about their funding, as I mentioned before. They also once (as I had indicated at the time) stole an item from this site (based on a confidential source in Syria) and translated it and published as their own. But I also like how they invent stories and attribute them to sources in the rival camp. Look at this one: they are citing unnamed "Iranian diplomatic sources"--read a propagandist in the press of office of the Hariri family in Lebanon--that Hizbullah will go to war for Iran's sake, and quote the source as saying, in effect, that Hizbullah is a mere arm of Iran. They often cite unnamed "opposition sources" as making the most outrageous claims about THE OPPOSITION, as in "yes, we are agents of Syria and we have no concern for Lebanon, or "we are against the interests of the Lebanese people." They once had an article against the Left in Lebanon, and typically they cited: an unnamed "Leftist source" who said: there is no such thing as left. I really kid you not. (By the way, the worst offenses are in the Arabic section of NowHariri, and all the examples here are from the Arabic section).