Friday, February 11, 2005

I occasionally come across reports from journalists belonging to an organisation known as the Free Arab Voice based in Iraq. They usually claim that US forces have suffered a defeat at the hands of the resistance forces, a chopper has been shot down, etc. The only problem is that you never get to hear these stories repeated in respectable media outlets (even alternative media sources), thereby exposing these stories for the sorry attempts at propaganda that they are (their bias is also evident from the way they report that "two resistance fighters were martyred"). The fact that their news stories are carried at a web site called Jihad Unspun is also a tell-tale sign. Another curious (at least for me) thing is that timelines are reported in Mecca time. I do not know whether this is a standard Middle Eastern custom, though.