The BBC has again been caught engaging in mass public deception by using photographs of pro-Ahmadinejad rallies in Iran and claiming they represent anti-government protests in favor of Hossein Mousavi.
An image used by the L.A. Times on the front page of its website Tuesday showed Iranian President Ahmadinejad waving to a crowd of supporters at a public event.
In a story covering the election protests yesterday, the BBC News website used a closer shot of the same scene, but with Ahmadinejad cut out of the frame. The caption under the photograph read, 'Supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi again defied a ban on protests'.
The BBC photograph is clearly a similar shot of the same pro-Ahmadinejad rally featured in the L.A. Times image, yet the caption erroneously claims it represents anti-Ahmadinejad protesters.
"Well I guess it sure was a popular fictional rally for Mousavi, because I later noticed while browsing the news sites a familiar picture on the BBC's lead Iran story - it shows the same crowd, zoomed in to cut out Ahmadinejad," a reader told the WhatReallyHappened website. "It is clearly the same protest as in the background are the same tree and odd circular building. However, the BBC managed to outdo the LA times in quality reporting - their actual comment under the photo from the huge PRO-Ahmadinejad rally reads 'Supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi again defied a ban on protests' - a blatant lie and deliberately misleading description of what is actually occurring in Iran!"
As soon as the truth about the misrepresented images surfaced on the WhatReallyHappened website yesterday, the BBC changed the photo caption on their original article.
This is not the first time the BBC has been caught red-handed using crude image and video framing techniques for the purposes of political propaganda.
During the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, the BBC and other mainstream news outlets broadcast closely framed footage of the "mass uprising" during which Iraqis, aided by U.S. troops, toppled the Saddam Hussein statue in Fardus Square.
The closely framed footage was used to imply that hundreds or thousands of Iraqis were involved in a Berlin Wall-style "historic" liberation, yet when wide angle shots were later published on the Internet, footage that was never broadcast on live television, the reality of the "mass uprising" became clear. The crowd around the statue was sparse and consisted mostly of U.S. troops and journalists. The BBC later had to admit that only "dozens" of Iraqis had participated in toppling the statue. The entire scene was a manufactured farce yet the propaganda technique of blocking wide-angle shots from being broadcast convinced the world that the event represented a triumphant and historic mass popular uprising on behalf of the Iraqi people.
Whatever your views on the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad and the accuracy of the Iranian election results, the fact that the Anglo-American establishment and its media organs are exploiting and fanning the flames of chaos in Iran to provoke further instability is unquestionable.
Indeed, the U.S. State Department, which routinely demonizes the Internet as a tool of extremists and terrorists when it is used to criticize U.S. foreign policy, took the unprecedented step today of requesting that Twitter.com "delay planned maintenance work so that Iranian protesters can continue to use it to post images and reports of unrest," according to a London Times report.
Update 19 June 2009: an earlier version of our caption was incorrect. We wrongly stated that this was a pro-Mousavi rally when in fact it was a pro-Ahmadinejad rally.
At least they got the "hundreds of thousands" part right: both photographs actually depict an event that was a huge victory rally for the re-elected President Ahmadinejad , which the BBC had earlier reported on June 14th. Their own video gives an idea of the scale of the rally:
Note how the commentator is twisting the event by suggesting that people were "bussed in from afar" for this "staged government-approved demonstration" celebrating Ahmadinejad's "frankly disputed election victory." Nevertheless there was no suggestion that this was anything other than a rally in favour of Ahmadinejad.
So given the spin the BBC was putting on this victory rally 5 days previously, when they knew this to be a pro-Ahmadinejad rally, are we to believe that their incorrect caption accompanying the photograph in their report of June 19th was simply a mistake? The BBC's little apology is rendered questionable at the very least.
Furthermore, it is not just the image caption which suggests deliberate manipulation. The Getty image that appeared in the BBC article appears to have been photoshopped. Look at the window configuration of the building in the background of both images and you will see that some of the windows are open in one and not in the other. This image tampering seems to have been done before the BBC used it, because the windows are closed in the Getty Images 'original' photograph. Note that the Getty Image caption accompanying the photograph reads:
Unrest Continues After Iranian Presidential Elections
This would seem to indicate that the BBC themselves did not deliberately modify the image and can claim they were misled by the caption accompanying the Getty Images 'original'.
The BBC is nonetheless guilty of creating a misleading caption to suit their bias and choosing to publish a photograph of an event that deliberately excludes any references to Ahmadinejad, an event they knew to be an enormous pro-Ahmadinejad rally, having broadcasted footage of it days before.
The episode is further evidence of the media working consciously with western intelligence agencies in a deliberate and deadly game of deception that seeks to undermine and demonize the Iranian government. At the very least it serves to illustrate how the manipulation of information is easily achieved by those invested in creating a particular outcome.
The writer of the above, Paul Joseph Watson, is full time employed by Alex Jones of Prisonplanet.com. It seems to me SOTT endorses 99.5% of what Alex Jones says most of the time, yet acuses Jones of being Cointelpro becuase he is pro gun or whatever.
It's odd that SOTT would borrow from Jones's work here on the one hand and criticize him as an "agent of hate" on the other.
Hey, I love SOTT but I would also love to hear you interviewed on his show to put your acusations on air.
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Comment: The BBC has issued a correction regarding the erroneous caption. It can be found at the foot of the original article and reads as follows: Here is the original Getty image used by the BBC:
Windows closed
Windows open
At least they got the "hundreds of thousands" part right: both photographs actually depict an event that was a huge victory rally for the re-elected President Ahmadinejad , which the BBC had earlier reported on June 14th. Their own video gives an idea of the scale of the rally:
Note how the commentator is twisting the event by suggesting that people were "bussed in from afar" for this "staged government-approved demonstration" celebrating Ahmadinejad's "frankly disputed election victory." Nevertheless there was no suggestion that this was anything other than a rally in favour of Ahmadinejad.
So given the spin the BBC was putting on this victory rally 5 days previously, when they knew this to be a pro-Ahmadinejad rally, are we to believe that their incorrect caption accompanying the photograph in their report of June 19th was simply a mistake? The BBC's little apology is rendered questionable at the very least.
Furthermore, it is not just the image caption which suggests deliberate manipulation. The Getty image that appeared in the BBC article appears to have been photoshopped. Look at the window configuration of the building in the background of both images and you will see that some of the windows are open in one and not in the other. This image tampering seems to have been done before the BBC used it, because the windows are closed in the Getty Images 'original' photograph. Note that the Getty Image caption accompanying the photograph reads: This would seem to indicate that the BBC themselves did not deliberately modify the image and can claim they were misled by the caption accompanying the Getty Images 'original'.
The BBC is nonetheless guilty of creating a misleading caption to suit their bias and choosing to publish a photograph of an event that deliberately excludes any references to Ahmadinejad, an event they knew to be an enormous pro-Ahmadinejad rally, having broadcasted footage of it days before.
The episode is further evidence of the media working consciously with western intelligence agencies in a deliberate and deadly game of deception that seeks to undermine and demonize the Iranian government. At the very least it serves to illustrate how the manipulation of information is easily achieved by those invested in creating a particular outcome.