It’s images like the recent one of the 5-year-old boy in Aleppo that are truly heartbreaking. Unfortunately, these same images are often used by media to push a political narrative.
As 21WIRE’s Patrick Henningsen reports on RT International, it’s much worse than that.
PH:
“This image went viral…but if you notice, media outlets didn’t run the whole video…”
“They took a still. If you actually watch the whole video, I hate to say it, but it looks completely staged.”
“You have this moment where they’re taking this boy out of this dark corner and there’s 15 people standing around with expensive cameras filming it…not exactly a scene for first responders.”
“And then they take the boy and they leave him on a seat and no one’s attending to him.”
“It does look as if it was staged for the cameras, and used in a very divisive way by the western media to maybe further their agenda that they’re trying to sell right now with regards to Aleppo.”
“This is a media war, this a public relations war. Western media is pushing this narrative that this (East Aleppo) is a rebel-held area. It’s all terrorist held…the whole of East Aleppo.”
“There’s no mention of the 1.5 million people in West Aleppo in the government held area that have fled there for safety and protection.”
“It’s (mainstream media) giving PR support to terrorist organizations.”
“These are people funded, trained, equipped and armed by western countries. You can call them rebels but they are terrorists, they are Islamists. If Aleppo falls to Islamists you will have a repeat of Mosul in Iraq.”
“Back to zero again.”
Originally aired August 19, 2016 on RT
