The following article describes the careful planning and co-ordination that goes into the production of fake news by global media conglomerates for propaganda purposes.

Many thanks to JLH for translating this piece from the Austrian news site Info-Direkt:

First Comes the Media Manipulation, Then the Policy

The dead boy in the bright red T-shirt washed up on the shore. The blood-covered boy in the ambulance. The bodies in the truck. The father with a child in his arms, tripped by the camerawoman. Do you know these pictures? Do you all know about them? Did they arouse strong emotions in you? I wouldn’t be surprised. But would you be surprised to find that none of them, and the accompanying narratives, represent the truth? Would you feel lied to and deceived, if it could be shown that you were manipulated by them?

A commentary by Florian Machl

April 10, 2017

In the space of a few months, the established media have confronted us with apparently dramatic events, which lead to the inevitable conclusion that “something must be done.” All these episodes are aimed at emotional pressure points — sympathy, morality, helpfulness. There are always politicians in Western countries who will answer the alleged calls for “immediate action” from the people, not only with promises but by passing ad hoc legislation.

On critical examination, all these events prove to be fraudulent media scenarios. Of course, the establishment media have no real interest in an independent scrutiny of the facts. Instead, they discredit anyone with justified or well-reasoned doubts as purveyors of “fake news.”

In this process, effective pictorial motifs have always been a crucial medium of political propaganda. At the beginning of this type of campaign, which is premised on influencing the public, there is always a dramatic photo and a short, pregnant, intensely emotional story. Present-day media practice is a populist appeal to the tear glands, rather than a presentation of connections and researching of backgrounds.

A Truck Opens the Border

August, 2015. The refugee crisis was in full spate. The people of Europe wanted security and closing of the borders. Then a truck was found in Parndorf in Austria. In it were 71 bodies: 59 men, 8 women, 4 children. Dramatic pictures were leaked “by happenstance.” Every empathetic citizen was outraged. No one socialized in Christian society would wish anyone “fleeing from war” the fate of suffocating to death in a truck. In practical terms, the large West Balkan Conference was being held simultaneously in Vienna, in which the continuing open borders and uncontrolled mass immigration could be halted. As with all such campaigns, as I will show below, allegedly “spontaneous” movements form for demonstrations. Which are then prominently featured in the media. A closed circle.

The mass media had no interest in the inconsistencies in this case. On the quiet, from various sources, it was learned that the dead people were carrying sums of money in the five figures. No one explained why some of the dead were decomposed to the point of being unrecognizable, while others were still reasonably well preserved, even though they shared the same refrigeration compartment. How a body can so fully decompose inside of a day after death by suffocation remains a riddle. In Wikipedia — which is not necessarily politically independent — we can read that the cause of death is “still unknown.” Investigation has revealed that the Czech finance minister and the Bulgarian intelligence service are involved in the case.

Global Sympathy for a Dead Boy on the Shore

September, 2015. A small boy in a bright red T-shirt lies dead on the beach near the Turkish town of Bodrum. Purely by happenstance, the Turkish photojournalist and employee of a large Turkish news agency, Nilüfer Demir, was on her way along this same beach, and discovered the body. Contrary to the usual effect of the ocean, the child had been washed up at a 90 degree angle. Aside from contradictory media reports, nothing is known of a storm that could have caused the sinking of a boat. Later, it becomes known that the father of the child was himself the people smuggler on this boat trip. The purpose of the trip for him was to get his teeth straightened for free in Germany. There was no typical refugee motive. The family had lived in Turkey for a long time, with a secure income and under no threat. The father wore a life jacket, but his family did not.

The photos went around the world, inspired numerous “works of art” and changed the attitudes of many people everywhere. The tragic picture served internationally as a reason to accept “war refugees.” Nobody questioned the photographer’s statement, the plausibility of her presence on the beach or why there was no mention of her attempting first aid. No one asked how it is even possible for someone drowned after a boat accident to immediately wash up on the shore — an apparently unique circumstance. Nor was anyone interested in how an unknown child with no ID could in a few hours be identified so fully by name and with childhood photos, to then make his way through the world press.

The above-mentioned father, who had also lost another child and his wife in the alleged boat accident, was taken with his possessions to a Turkish hospital. From here, on the same day, he posted photos of the child on his Facebook page. Is this unusual? Judge for yourself.

The Heartless Lady Photographer Creates a “Green” Media Star

September, 2015. Illegal mass border crossing by “refugees.” A man carrying a child is running away. A Hungarian photographer allegedly sticks her foot out and trips him — he falls. The pictures become viral and the outrage is great. Spain accepts the “refugee” and he gets a job as a soccer trainer.

Nothing more is said in the mass media about the inconsistencies. Kurds identify the man as Omar Abdul Mohsen, a member of the terrorist militia, Al-Nusra Front. The man is accused of complicity in events that led to the death of 50 Kurds. They said that he had been involved in crimes against civilians for years. Whether that was known to the people who arranged the “tripping” by the photographer, is not clear. What is odd here is why dozens of photographers witnessing a mass refugee movement had the idea of concentrating on one of their colleagues, as if they intuited that the story was right there. Pictures taken from another angle showed that the photographer had not touched the refugee at all. The story of the “tripping” cannot be confirmed. The soccer player took a fabulous dive and became the star of the world media. There are also no journalist questions about why he was carrying a brand new, chic shoulder bag from the Austrian Green Party.

A Poor Injured Boy From Aleppo

August 2016. A boy named Omran — covered in blood and a veil of dust — sits apathetically in an ambulance. As in the above cases, a cameraman and “activist” is “totally surprised” by the international attention his photo receives. It serves to illustrate how bad things are for people in Aleppo and the cruelty of the Assad regime, which is desperately attempting to preserve the last ruins of its civilization from the Islamic barbarians.^[1]. One news source calls it “a touching picture.” Another calls it “a horrifying picture.” So now let’s explain what the readers are damned well going to feel. So long as it is properly presented. In fact, the activist group the photographer comes from is known for Islamist terrorism in the periphery of the Al-Nusra Front. None of the journalists who are simulating shock is disturbed by the fact that the photographer appeared in pictures with Islamist terrorists, who shortly before had posted material on this internet showing them cutting off a child’s head. Arabic investigative journalists even speculated that the “activist” could have made the film of the child’s murder. A little later, the same “activist’s” picture of the child in the ambulance goes viral.^[2]

The Very Convenient Poison Gas Attack in Idlib

April, 2017. Syria has almost won the war. The USA and Russia have agreed on non-intervention. Then comes a photo. Children as victims of a poison gas attack by the regime, the story goes. “Unmistakable — sarin — you could smell it” says the press. No one notes that sarin is odorless. No one cares that sarin is volatile and cannot be sprayed from airplanes. That those who come to the aid of victims cannot touch them without gloves, because even a drop would be deadly, is a minor detail. The mainstream press does not bother to research the source of the photos — the highly controversial organization, the “White Helmets” — often the purveyor of Fake News. Research is unnecessary baggage — not worthy of 2017 journalism. And so President Trump has “good grounds” for full intervention in the war^[3]. Emotions, tears, sympathy, morality. A picture that goes around the world in the post-factual age.

An Invisible Media Network is Coordinating the News

What all these incidents have in common is that almost the entire world press, without reflection or scrutiny, knee-jerks into publishing the pictures and stories. That can be coincidence, but not necessarily. The controversial billionaire George Soros commands a media network. The codeword for that is “Project Syndicate.” The identical opinion can be published simultaneously in 12 languages worldwide, changing public opinion quickly and lastingly. In April 2016 this network influenced 476 media outlets in 154 countries. These media are always in the forefront when it comes to spreading pictures and stories like those described above.

It is even more disconcerting that the parties SPÖ, ÖVP, NEO^[4] and the Greens all want to bring Soros’s “university” to Vienna. We can imagine what that curriculum may contain. The motivation is not puzzling. Info-Direkt has already reported about leaked documents describing which European politicians are considered “especially reliable” by the Soros lobby. In contrast, Soros is considered an enemy of the state in Hungary and Russia. His NGOs and other activities were or are banned. Is it any wonder that the MSM are representing these countries as undemocratic or hostile?

Notes