CNN Caught Red Handed Falsely Using Footage To Vilify Russia

reply to post by SIRR1


Looks like you fell for the propaganda hook line and sinker... Georgia attacked south ossetia and killed 2000 innocent civilians.. South ossetia had peacekeepers...Russia then defended the city and pushed the georgians back.. A proper thing to do considering there citizens were being butchered... It sound like your a mouthpiece for CNN

[edit on 17-8-2008 by thefreepatriot]

reply to post by SIRR1



Looks like you'r outgunned here... and judging by a recent cnn poll taken recently which says 92% Of americans beleive russia's action is a peacekeeping action it tells me your are also outgunned here in the U.S If you beleive in democracy then you should know that majority rules... so I don't know what your political agenda is.. but I do know ours here is the truth nothing more nothing less.

[edit on 17-8-2008 by thefreepatriot]

Typical of the Yank crap media. If they can`t find a good story they invent one - this is the lowest of the lowset and the powers that be should throw them out.
Utterly disgraceful but not surprising from the Americans.

**Graphic Photos**

Russian photojournalist Arkady Babchenko’s photographs of the carnage in Tskhinvali support the Rossiya cameraman' report...slightly different angles, but same buildings...same tanks, same turret through the concrete overhead. Includes some interesting photos of the Chetznian Volunteers (trademark white sneakers) embedded with the Russian regulars. The final image is Arkady Babchenko.

Clicking the Google Translate link on this page will bring you to a related thread on the Russian forum 'The Art of War. Babchenko joins the discussion on page 1. On page 2, he denies the accusations made by Saakashvili of Russian/Chetznian piliaging...describes the civilian property crimes that have occured as a 'euphoria looting response' by resident S. Ossetians.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


Your right, i live here in the U.S.A, and 99% of the news (and newspaper) here in the U.S.A know what they are doing, so if CNN say "it was a mistake" then they are full of $!*/. The media is control and edit, they do what they want us to see or hear. Dont believe what you always hear AND read(newspaper).

New video: Russia says CNN again falsely reporting Russian tanks on the move towards Tbilisi, when in fact it was Russians who had discovered abandoned battle-ready tanks and other weapons, and were driving the tanks to safer areas so they wouldn't be stolen by some civilian madman.



Thanks CNN for bringing us the news- unfair and unbalanced.

You mean I missed my chance to get a free tank?!?!

DRAT &*^%&^%$&!!!!

reply to post by xmotex


lol, why are you a civilian madman?

But wait, if we also know that the Russian media is just as evil, then how do we know this is any more true than what CNN is doing? To me, their reporting style is just more believable than western media, despite being as potentially false.

lol, why are you a civilian madman?

That all depends who you ask

Really, any major media outlet, Western or Russian, has other priorities than "getting the facts to the people" - modern journalism is an industry, it's the industry of shaping the perceptual world of it's target audience.

The "facts" all depend on who's looking.

[edit on 8/17/08 by xmotex]

I won't comment on the political aspects as to what's going on in Georgia, but I can maybe shed some light on the airing of the wrong video in the CNN broadcast. First of all I believe it was just a simple mistake. You say...”This is no mistake, the MSM is trying to deceive us, what do you know?” Sure maybe there are higher ups that are influencing a particular slant on the entire network coverage, but one wrong vid is nothing.

I used to work for the largest international news gathering crew in Canada...CBC. I was a techie working is several different areas and have a full knowledge of how the gears turn in news gathering and broadcasting.

There are 2 front lines; written editorial/producing and news gathering/ video editing. They run hand in hand. The copy writers, producers and upper news heads meet and discuss events, what to cover, who will cover what( most peeps have a particular area of expertise ie. Middle east, science and health etc.)
They break up and go to write/ produce their piece with the help of interns, copy writers, video gathers and video editors. Of course they check in with the managing editors,higher ups etc. and get the story OK'ed. to broadcast. This all happens quickly and frenetically as the news is always evolving and there are tight deadlines.....live TV!

Now, news gathering/editing is where the prob happened( I believe). The “news pits” is the rooms you see in the movies. Walls of monitors, scopes, switchers, audio meters, VTRs(video tape recorders) and all kinds of techie stuff. This is where all the world footage is gathered and then edited, turned around and broadcasted. My room had 50-60 monitors, 40-50 VTRs. You cannot image the amount of footage that goes through this area in a 24 hour period. I would constantly recored major news services such as BBC, ITV, Reuters, Al Jezeera, CCTV(China), NHK(Japan) and many more. Wild feeds came in at any given time. All these feeds send different types of footage. Pre-editied, ready to broadcast stuff( if there is already wrong info here, than it can get on air if the producer doesn't check it all closely) , NAT sound (natural sound) pieces to be VO'ed to fit the local region, labeled footage (ie. Gori footage, etc.) and non labeled footage called “B Roll”. This is just random stuff......exterior of building, burning cars, tanks etc..

This footage is taken by someone usually at intern level and viewed with notes being make. IE. Tape B234587 Gori/Georgia footage, BBC news service. At timecode 12:34:45:00 Russian tanks. 12: 45:32:05 man crying. 12:55:46:10 exterior of what looks like government building. All this goes into the database. Producers and video editors use this database when editing the piece. If the original news service has make a mistake, it is unlikely to got caught unless it is blatantly wrong, ie. Shots of Paris labeled as Bagdad etc.

Ok...into the editing room. The producers copy has been approved. They have gathered tapes(using the database and watching the feeds themselves) to take to the video editor. The editor( with the producer in the room) starts making a video story. The story is a combination of standups ( reporter talking at the camera), interviews and VO's/copy. The VO ( voice over) has no footage of it's own but is needed to make the story work and tie it together. The editor will then look for B roll to show images that go along with the VO. EI. If the VO is talking about babies crying, then the editor will try and find footage of babies crying. Makes sense right?

This was a simple mistake of the editor and producer looking for footage to show conflict in a particular city, not realizing it was the wrong city, but knowing it was the right country . It could even have been mis-labeled by an intern or not labeled at all. This happens ALL THE TIME! Can you distinguish between these 2 Georgian cities???? I think not.

2 times I came across it just popped into mind( there are many more, but these are good examples). First one....i was editing a piece for remembrance day about the air war over Europe. The producer brought all her tapes and away we went. During one VO of a veteran talking about being a pilot, we needed footage of an Allied plane( can't remember which one). We had stock footage labeled Allied planes. Watched the tape and found one amazing shot of a plane doing twists and turns etc. We both agreed that was the shot that fit exactly with what the the vet was describing. After placing it in the piece, something didn't sit right with me. Watched it again....and again.....guess what, it was a German plane. The producer didn't even notice( or even really care). I changed it. This happened under a low pressure environment. The piece didn't have to make the nightly news. Would I have noticed it if I had 2mins to air??? And if I did, would I have had time to change it??? Probably not.

2 second time that pops to mind ( since this was a CNN mistake as well) was during the Quebec referendum. CNN was using B roll of Toronto (which is in Ontario, not Quebec) and had the graphic “Montreal” as the city name. These are 2 cities that I would hope a producer in the US would be able to tell the difference between. So, does it surprise me that CNN couldn't tell the diff between 2 Georgian cities, not at all.

That's a somewhat brief run down on how I believe this happened. Of course there is a lot more to making a news broadcast, but that's the basics. Rightly or wrongly, this type of thing happens all the time on networks. Just no one really notices at home, did any of you spot the mistake on the original broadcast?. No conspiracy here in my IMHO.

reply to post by Memysabu


Please turn off your ignores!! If somebody is spreading disinformation, and you have the ability to call them on it, then you should be doing exactly that. Please don't ignore someone you can prove to be a disinfo agent. We all need to know. Whether we realize it or not.

reply to post by Connector


That's an interesting read but is that any guarantee things function just like that at CNN?

Even so, that question is really trivial compared to the bias across the entire MSM in attempting to make Russia the bad guy in this. It is widespread and obvious. And is that your possible solution to explain the other videos posted on this thread, especially this one?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

How is it these simple "mistakes" happen to fit in so nicely with the otherwise obvious bias of western media to vilify Russia on this story? Just coincidence, of course.

[edit on 17-8-2008 by TrueAmerican]

Sky news have been airing the correct story of the beaten town in south ossetia, came under fire by Georgia, killing hundreds of citizens and a group of peacekeepers. You can't keep the truth once it's leaked and Russia have been doing a good job of putting across their side of the story for the last week on BBCs Hard line

To be honest I think this shows Russia in a good light and the media in an extremely bad one, the best we can do is keep others informed with threads like this.

Good work OP

reply to post by TrueAmerican

That's an interesting read but is that any guarantee things function just like that at CNN?

Thank you. You wouldn't believe some of the stories I have from that time in my life. I was there from the Rwanda crisis up till just before 911. No it is not a guarantee that that is how things run at CNN, but I can tell you, I dealt with them frequently and I could show up at any major news service in the world and be able to jump right in. All the news services pretty much run on the same formula, regardless of location and culture.

Even so, that question is really trivial compared to the bias across the entire MSM in attempting to make Russia the bad guy in this. It is widespread and obvious. And is that your possible solution to explain the other videos posted on this thread, especially this one?

How is it these simple "mistakes" happen to fit in so nicely with the otherwise obvious bias of western media to vilify Russia on this story? Just coincidence, of course.

As my first line in the above post says: I won't comment on the political aspects of what is going on in Georgia because I don't know.. Is the western MSM vilifying Russia...maybe, we don't know the whole story and never will. My main point is the footage was placed because human error. "I need a 4sec shot of tanks in a Georgian city" Just like Toronto stands in for NYC in alot of movies. Trust me, the people making these pieces are just one gog in the wheel and the "higher ups" don't have time to look at every shot used in a story. But as I mentioned they may have a particular slant on covering the story for the whole network. Infact we all can see this...look at the different angles between Fox and CNN on your race for the POTUS.

I agree it's widespread. That was sort of the point of my thread. All news services get their news from the "wire". Where many mistakes can be made and then repeated by another news service because of the nature of todays news cycle. When you have 1000's of hours of footage coming into your room in a 24hour time period mistakes are made. I was trying to bring it down to a human level and why I believe the wrong footage was used. People who work at these services are just like you and me. They have no big agenda's and don't have the power to bring them to fruition if they did.


CNN is more an entertainment news service than where I worked. Just because it bleeds, did not necessarily mean it leads at our service.


I highly suggest you watch CBC news for a more un-biased world view. It is publicly owned, so no big corp setting the angle of coverage.

News services can only report on the FACTS hmmm.... that they can get. Now it's who providing the facts that is the problem.

Try publishing factual news in Russia.

Media has been working for the governmant since 63 ,,,,,
Wake up those that still call Alex Jones a fraud, and realise your all being lied to everyday.

Good post.
CNN,BBC,FOX NEWS etc. they all have their own secret agendas.
Such agendas are spreading racial hate and misinformation all over the place.
Yes the war is pretty bad at the moment but there is no need for these people to misconstrue information that manipulates us into thinking the way they want us to.

awww #t here we go WW3 Now ma nig***

reply to post by TrueAmerican


U.S. worries Russia returning to its past

Shadows of the Cold War emerged as the Bush administration struggled for the appropriate response to Russia's aggression against its smaller U.S.-backed neighbor, which Moscow ruled for most of the two centuries before the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

"I think that there is a real concern that Russia has turned the corner here and is headed back toward its past rather than toward its future, and my hope is that we will see actions in the weeks and months to come that provide us some reassurance," Gates said.

It seems I'm not the only one that disagrees with you.
By the way, I truly don't understand your "TrueAmerican" name. Last time I checked, True Americans don't support countries that threaten the United States and their allies. I remind you of the following definition of treason:

The Constitution of the United States, Art. III, defines treason against the United States to consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort.

In addition, one minute you claim thousands killed in South Ossetia, and then another minute you post a new thread saying it was only 45 killed. Maybe you should get your facts straight before going off the deep end, in your undying support of the Russian thugs.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


I think as we become more democracized by technolgy these big new corporations will have to rethink how they present the news. With almost everyone having a mobile phone with a camera, I think it will be up to us the people to present the "Truth".

the days of big one sized stories are numbered...