The Guardian apologizes for saying Sputnik posted ‘fake’ Notre Dame PHOTO vilifying Muslims

Comment: Hoisted by their own petard. This shows how the Guardian is feverishly looking for racism that isn't there and reveals how ideologially possessed they really are. 

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RT

The Guardian has issued a mealy-mouthed apology for accusing Russian news agency Sputnik of doctoring images in the immediate aftermath of the Notre Dame fire to perpetuate an anti-Muslim narrative online – four months later.

“In an episode of Fake or for real? published on 19 April, we suggested that a photo that went viral during the Notre Dame fire had been doctored,” the Guardian wrote in an Instagram story Monday. Instagram stories only have a shelf-life of 24 hours, but thankfully screenshots of the story exist.

“We have been contacted by the copyright owner of the photo, Sputnik France, and accept that it had not been doctored; we apologise for suggesting otherwise.”

The four-months late apology refers to the Guardian’s coverage of a photo from Sputnik France’s Facebook live coverage of the April 15 Notre Dame fire. 

The Guardian’s ‘Fake or for Real’ Instagram series suggested the photo was altered to depict ‘Muslims’ celebrating the fire at the world-famous cathedral. 

This particular angle appeared in various locations online, there was just one problem: Sputnik did not make any reference or speculation as to the men's background or religious beliefs. 

Sputnik France even released the full metadata relating to the image, allowing any and all ‘fact-checkers’ to see for themselves. 

This photo has been shared tens of thousands of times on Facebook in the past 24 hours. It shows "Muslims laughing" walking away from #NotreDame. But the image is doctored. https://t.co/FYzZPhGdsz pic.twitter.com/M5Dr9Nio91

— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) April 16, 2019

At the time, the ‘fact-checking’ community went into overdrive, including bastion of virtue, Politifact, which was forced to issue a multi-tiered retraction over the course of several weeks.

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How Jonathan Freedland & the Guardian covered for Israel

David Cronin
If Americans Knew



 Jonathan Freedland speaks at JDOV in 2018 (from video)
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Two articles below from past years describe pro-Israel influence at the UK Guardian: 

How The Guardian told me to steer clear of Palestine

 

By David Cronin, reposted from the Electronic Intifada, 2015

When I started out as a journalist in the 1980s, I asked an experienced Irish reporter for advice. “Read The Guardian,” he told me.

The message that there was no better newspaper had a lasting effect. For years, I wanted to write for The Guardian. Eventually, this desire was realized after I emailed the late Georgina Henry, then editor of its Comment is Free section, in 2007. Henry was immediately receptive to my idea of tackling the European Union from a critical, left-wing perspective.

I very much enjoyed contributing to The Guardian. Having previously worked for quite a stuffy publication, it felt liberating to be able to express opinions.

There was one issue, however, on which I felt my freedom curtailed: Palestine. Although The Guardian did publish a few of my articles denouncing Israeli atrocities, I began to encounter obstacles in 2009.

Sensitive

 

Early that year, I submitted an exposé of how the pro-Israel lobby operates in Brussels. While waiting to find out if the piece would be used, I phoned Matt Seaton, who had taken over as comment editor. We had a pleasant conversation but Seaton stressed that he regarded the subject as sensitive.

I, then, modified the piece to make its tone less polemical. Still, it was not published. (Seaton has subsequently moved to The New York Times.)

[Ed note: he is now at the New York Review of Books, where he continues to write Israel-centric articles]

A few months later, I paid a visit to Gaza. From there, I contacted The Guardian to say that I had interviewed Sayed Abu Musameh, a founding member of Hamas.

Abu Musameh had expressed an interest in visiting Belfast to study how the Irish peace process worked. He had already held discussions with Gerry Adams, the Sinn Féin leader who had persuaded the Irish Republican Army to call a ceasefire.

Abu Musameh, I felt, was saying something that jarred with the official view of Hamas presented by Israel and its Western supporters. Far from being addicted to violence, he was eager to learn about what policy wonks call “conflict resolution.”

The Guardian was not keen to have me writing from Gaza. Brian Whitaker, a commissioning editor at the time, told me that its comment section received more submissions about Palestine than any other subject. Whitaker, ironically a Middle East specialist, effectively recommended that I stick to writing about the EU. (The recommendation was bizarre both because Palestine is a key issue for the EU and because I am one of the few journalists to examine the Union’s complicity in Israel’s crimes.)

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2018: When Orwell’s 1984 Stopped Being Fiction

Jonathan Cook
ICH

This is the moment when a newspaper claiming to uphold that most essential function in a liberal democracy – acting as a watchdog on power – formally abandons the task. This is the moment when it positively embraces the role of serving as a mouthpiece for the government. The tell is in one small word in a headline on today’s Guardian’s front page: “Revealed”.

When I trained as a journalist, we reserved a “Revealed” or an “Exposed” for those special occasions when we were able to bring to the reader information those in power did not want known. These were the rare moments when as journalists we could hold our heads high and claim to be monitoring the centres of power, to be fulfilling our sacred duty as the fourth estate.

But today’s Guardian’s “exclusive” story “Revealed: UK’s push to strengthen anti-Russia alliance” is doing none of this. Nothing the powerful would want hidden from us is being “revealed”. No one had to seek out classified documents or speak to a whistleblower to bring us this “revelation”. Everyone in this story – the journalist Patrick Wintour, an anonymous “Whitehall official”, and the named politicians and think-tank wonks – is safely in the same self-congratulatory club, promoting a barely veiled government policy: to renew the Cold War against Russia.

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