<nettime> Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: False Indymedia information about "CNN fake"

[Florian Cramer <cantsin@zedat.fu-berlin.de>]

A roughly translated excerpt of an article which appeared in the German
newspaper "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", Sept. 17, 2001, p.51:


"[...] According to the E-Mail whose circulation seems to be world-wide,
some of the footage is from 1991 and actually shows Palestinians who
celebrate Saddam Hussein's attack on Kuwait. The authors refer to
"www.indymedia.org" and "www.awakenedwoman.com" as their home addresses;
one of them even writes that he knows someone in his home country
Brasilia who now is a university teacher and who had recorded such
images ("the very same images") years ago, in 1991. 

Not surprisingly, the related E-Mail contains due reactions on this
suspicion, a suspicion which boils down to the "propaganda machine" CNN
having nothing else to do but stir up hatred between different peoples,
and prepare the world for war. The authors don't find it necessary to
back up themselves with a single piece of confirmed information. If they
had made a phone call to CNN or Reuters TV in London, which had shot the
first images in Palestinia broadcasted over CNN, they would have been
given not only a disclaimer, but also an exact explanation where the
images came from. Peter Thomas, head of the press relations office at 
Reuters TV London, says that the images of palestinians rejoicing upon
burning New York were shot immediately on Tuesday afternoon by a Reuters
camera team in East Jerusalem. It is "entirely untrue", he says, when
people claim that this was archive footage.

For Thomas, it is telling that the authors of the rumors didn't even
attempt to obtain "clarification from Reuters TV". While the images of
his agency, Thomas says, are from East Jerusalem in the afternoon of
september 11th, the images of the news agency AP -- which showed similar
scenes -- were, according to his knowledge, shot in Lebanon. Amelie von
Heinrichdorff, speakeswoman of CNN Germany, too, rejects the rumors
"totally": "In the midst of these horrible events", she said to this
newspaper, "it is sad to encounter people who irresponsibly spread false
information by E-Mail". 

[...]

To which extent these scenes [translator's note: Jassir Arafat donating
blood] or those shown before may be seen as representative for the whole
picture, remains to be judged by the audience. But those who believe
they can weaken certain images by pointing to a conspiracy theory lack
as much differentiation as those who put all muslims under general
suspicion. [...]"


(From: Michael Hanfeld, The Very Same Images. The first conspiracy on
its way: How to spread doubt over CNN, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
media page, 17.9.2001, p.57, unauthorized rough translation by Florian
Cramer)


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