I heard the news today, oh boy...
Who do you believe when two sides of an argument both have barrows to push and both have vested interests in discrediting their opponents? Who's more trustworthy when claims are accepted as proven merely on the say-so of a biased third party?
The blogosphere has gotten slightly rabid in regards to the Qana incident. Originally an ambulance in Qana was allegedly bombed by Israeli forces as part of their air strikes on Hezbollah targets. Then came many claims that the ambulance bombing was a hoax, and part of a Hezbollah propaganda campaign to demonise Israel and turn worldwide sentiment against their military campaign.
The Israeli Defence Force didn't actually come out and deny the attack. Despite this, a whole plethora of people in the "hoax" camp have sourced a blog post from Zombietimes in which the blogger analyses some of the photos released and concludes that the damage on the ambulance is inconsistent with a missile attack. Without any hard credentials in military ordnance or forensic analysis, and without being anywhere near the scene, this is armchair analysis at best - but nonetheless it was seized upon by some of our country's most respected conservative journalists as conclusive evidence.
And now the counter-claims are coming, from eyewitnesses at the scene of the attack, that the convincing hoax arguments aren't based in fact after all. This is leading many on the anti-war side to tear shit out of our Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer for citing the Zombietimes website as incontrovertible proof (and it appears Alex's commitment to integrity and truth doesn't extend as far as taking on board advice that discredits the government line). It's also leading to well-known blogger/journo/RWDB Andrew Bolt being ripped into by several members of the progressive blogosphere for what they perceive as hypocrisy - Bolt being one of the loudest voices howling for the head of Terry Lane, who recently resigned from the same paper after admitting he was suckered in by a blog hoax.
All in all, it's a bit of a media/blogosphere shitfight. My personal opinions on the matter aside (and those shouldn't be hard to ascertain) I think the standards of investigative journalism, public policy debate and impartial decision making are declining at a frightening rate. When the echo chamber effect is so readily apparent on both sides of the fence, and it's increasingly difficult to draw any distinction between news stories and op-eds, and most of the small-scale independent media sources are obviously heavily biased themselves, how the heck can anybody consider themselves informed about events happening half a world away?
The blogosphere has gotten slightly rabid in regards to the Qana incident. Originally an ambulance in Qana was allegedly bombed by Israeli forces as part of their air strikes on Hezbollah targets. Then came many claims that the ambulance bombing was a hoax, and part of a Hezbollah propaganda campaign to demonise Israel and turn worldwide sentiment against their military campaign.
The Israeli Defence Force didn't actually come out and deny the attack. Despite this, a whole plethora of people in the "hoax" camp have sourced a blog post from Zombietimes in which the blogger analyses some of the photos released and concludes that the damage on the ambulance is inconsistent with a missile attack. Without any hard credentials in military ordnance or forensic analysis, and without being anywhere near the scene, this is armchair analysis at best - but nonetheless it was seized upon by some of our country's most respected conservative journalists as conclusive evidence.
And now the counter-claims are coming, from eyewitnesses at the scene of the attack, that the convincing hoax arguments aren't based in fact after all. This is leading many on the anti-war side to tear shit out of our Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer for citing the Zombietimes website as incontrovertible proof (and it appears Alex's commitment to integrity and truth doesn't extend as far as taking on board advice that discredits the government line). It's also leading to well-known blogger/journo/RWDB Andrew Bolt being ripped into by several members of the progressive blogosphere for what they perceive as hypocrisy - Bolt being one of the loudest voices howling for the head of Terry Lane, who recently resigned from the same paper after admitting he was suckered in by a blog hoax.
All in all, it's a bit of a media/blogosphere shitfight. My personal opinions on the matter aside (and those shouldn't be hard to ascertain) I think the standards of investigative journalism, public policy debate and impartial decision making are declining at a frightening rate. When the echo chamber effect is so readily apparent on both sides of the fence, and it's increasingly difficult to draw any distinction between news stories and op-eds, and most of the small-scale independent media sources are obviously heavily biased themselves, how the heck can anybody consider themselves informed about events happening half a world away?