Russian news servers spread hoax that "Western media" are faking reports of civilians rescuing children in Aleppo
Last month the Facebook social networking site saw a massive dissemination of a collage of photographs from Aleppo, Syria that allegedly “proved” that “Western media” reports about the situation in Aleppo were being manipulated. Those sharing the photographs alleged they had been manipulated to show different Syrian men rescuing the same little girl in three different places.
The photographs were disseminated with commentaries such as the following: “The Oscar for best actor is won by the Syrian who rescued the same little girl in three places three different times.” As of 18 November the collage had been shared more than 3 000 times.
The collage was shared elsewhere online with the claim that three different men were reported to have rescued one and the same girl at various locations. The allegation was that the image of the girl was inserted into the photos.
The entire alleged manipulation of the photographs by “Western media” was reported by the Russian news servers Russia Insider and Russkaya Vesna, in particular. The source photographs of the rescue work appeared, for example, on the Daily Mail news server with a report about the Syrian helicopter Air Force attacking the Bab al-Nairab area of Aleppo on 27 August of this year.
The photographs originally came from the worldwide photobank Getty Images. Aljazeera has documented the situation using photographs from Reuters.
The Reuters photos are also used by The Sun news server. Other photographs of the rescue come from Agence France-Presse.
In other words, photographers from several worldwide agencies were all at the scene and several videos of the rescue were simultaneously produced. When one looks at all of the photographs and video footage together, they document the fact that the little girl was handed from one man to another at the same attack site.
This is also documented by the photographs and video footage here and here. The photographs were taken all on the same day at the same location and are not supposed to document various places – and they do not show a single man at allegedly different rescue sites.
Russkaya Vesna has presented its readers with other “evidence” of alleged manipulation of reporting about the war in Syria by the “Western media”. Video footage of the attack on Aleppo on 24 September, where allegedly the same little girl was said to have been rescued, was reported as proof of manipulated coverage, but if one takes the time to look at the footage in question, the girl’s face is never actually shown.
Republished with permission from hatefree.cz
