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Newsbud
Title: Syria Under Siege: Guarding Against Wolves in Sheep Clothing
Published: 2018-03-21
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOio1baDxd4
Title: Syria Under Siege: Guarding Against Wolves in Sheep Clothing
Published: 2018-03-21
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOio1baDxd4
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Ah! The Syria crisis has now entered its seventh year, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands while displacing millions. It has proven to be difficult to get unbiased, reliable information during this multi-sided conflict, which has now reached a critical stage. Syria, a cultural, ethnic and religious mosaic of a country, with 74% Sunnis, 13% Shias, 8-12% of which are allowites and about 2% mercenaries. 3% droves, about2/143
10% Christians. Additional ethnicities include Syrian Kurds, Turkmens, Armenians, Sykhasians, Greeks, Malami, Yazidis, Shabaks and Mendians. There are so many ethnic groups in Syria. It's hard to determine who's who. We're kind of confusing for outsider to try to get involved in to learn about. Syria and nation under siege, with multiple forces involved from many sides, by multiple factions and nations. We have Assad's forces, Kurds, PID and3/143
YPG, FSA, Al-Nusra, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Ahrar-Asham, Sylex-Asham, and we have multiple nations and their bases such as Turkey, Iran, Russia, US, NATO and Israel. This situation in Syria is very, so very difficult to report objectively what is happening. We have multiple sides and every side says the other side is bad. NewsBud spoke with Ariana Love, who lived in Gaza, Jordan and now Finland. She is the4/143
goodwill ambassador to Palestine. As an independent journalist and author, she has been covering the refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe. I was interviewing Iraqi refugees, mostly from Mosul, which was under ISIS control for a long time. Most of them actually passed through Syria and on into Turkey. They said the same thing to be careful who I talk to in the camps and that there5/143
were some people that were not trusted. And I think the authorities are here in Finland as well as the rest of Europe. They have a very hard time determining who's who, who's really a victim and who is a plant. Whether a pro-Syrian government, anti-Syrian government or just neutral, these are the victims paying the highest price of being torn by this multisided war, with hundreds of thousands6/143
of lives lost. Many more injured, millions of displaced and refugees and homes turned into rubble and dust. With so many factions involved, so many divided geographical areas and so many diverging foreign interests, how do journalists go about factual and unbiased reporting on Syria? Chris Melides has been a researcher and investigative journalist for nearly 20 years. For the last several years, Chris has provided extensive coverage on7/143
the Syrian war and the refugee crisis. He is a writer and a correspondent for newsbud.com based in Greece. So, if a journalist has a certain ideology or is sympathetic to someone, then he's not going to do his job very good. How can this be done through ethical journalism but most importantly with human decency? I had to literally write everything down in notes by hand. If there8/143
was a camera, they wouldn't talk to me. People wouldn't talk to me. And they said the reason for this is because most of these refugees still had families inside Syria. It's not just going to Syria and just taking pictures and doing some activists do. There's a lot of real good activists. I know that came to Syria and I've been straight forward and they've been real sincere9/143
about Syria but I don't think all of them have done that. Some of them have their agendas. First of all, we must not take sides. We must know that everyone is capable of anything. We also spoke with Rebecca Baker, who has been a journalist for over 20 years and is currently the national president for the Society of Professional Journalists. But you need to be upfront in10/143
your advocacy. If you portraying yourself as a neutral news organization when you are not, when you're an advocacy organization, then that is dishonest and that's wrong. How can outsiders sift through information and misinformation bombardment and detect facts versus agenda and biased based reporting? The short answer, considering the circumstances and the multitude of interests and agendas, it is very difficult but not impossible. Most people in the11/143
social media, most people post and share some venues because they believe it, not because they read it. I mean, they see it at idle and they post it in seconds, in 10 seconds, they don't read it. It's psychological issue. It reaffirms their belief. So someone who is like that cannot find the truth. He lost it. In 2011, we were the first news organization to expose the12/143
US NATO operation targeting Syria, via Turkey. We were the first again to break the story on training camps in Jordan, in preparation for the Syrian destabilization operations. We have continued our coverage over the years on the most important and blacked out stories involving the Syria crisis through our video reports, roundtable discussions, articles and analysis. One of the most important principles in factual reporting. Do not align13/143
yourself with a side or an interest, but if you do, do it in a transparent way and make it clear with a bold disclaimer. And as a reader and observer of the news, pay attention to whose side you're getting your information from, and whose interests or agenda is being promoted. Remember the quote, one man's terrorists is another man's freedom fighter. Well, when it comes to Syria,14/143
this is the case with every single faction. When a report states something like Turkish forces neutralized and took out 132 terrorists in Syria, and lost three Turkish martyrs, my first question always is, really? Who identified those killed as terrorists? Who is terrorists? How about the seven babies and children who died during this operations? Are these babies terrorists? Who is in whose territory? Who's the invader? Who's15/143
engaged in defense? In order to get as close as possible to facts, I have to read dozens of other reports from multiple sites, including reports and documents posted by the Kurds, those announced in Russian publications, the ones put forward by Western media and other Arab nations, and even a multitude of social media posts by civilians in or near the area. Will doing all that get me16/143
bulletproof factual reporting? Maybe not. But it certainly will get me much closer to it than reading your particular government side with its own particular agenda or interest. Let's be clear to something. You cannot go in Syria and be on the ground like an independent journalist without protection, without security and report. You're going to be killed in one or two days or you're going to be captured17/143
from someone. So the only way to report on the ground in Syria is to be protected by certain security forces, either be Assad or US forces or Russia's. Of course, if you're protected by, let's say, US forces, you cannot write something against US forces. You know that? Let's be clear to this. So actually, we don't have objective reporting from journalists on the ground and every one18/143
of them that are on the ground, they support someone. We all know about the Western mainstream media's track record when it comes to US NATO perpetuated synthetic wars to further its imperialistic agendas. We had the long ago debunked Iraq, WMD, false news, and propaganda. We had the already debunked reportage on this synthetically induced Arab Spring. We had the US NATO scripted Libya debacle, transmitted via their19/143
Western directed stenographers. So yes, many around the world were awakened and now they distrust almost anything and everything put forth by those mainstream propaganda channels. Mainstream media has lost its credibility and has been taking its last dying breaths. This phenomenon has not been lost on the deep state. To keep up with the changing media landscape and the age of the internet and social media, the deep20/143
state players have been changing their tactics and utilizing alternative means as well. Whether through social media or pseudo alternative fronts posing as independent. Many readers and viewers of the news justifiably discussed it by and distrustful of the mainstream outlets have been searching for and reaching out to alternative sources, alternative voices and outlets. With this fairly new trend arise, many important questions and concerns as well. How21/143
do we establish the funding and biases of thousands of self proclaimed journalists and activists who claim to be independent? How do we set journalistic standards and expectations such as fact checking, verification, ethical practices and liabilities for these sources? What are the responsibilities of readers and viewers within the online communities? These questions and expectations are extremely important in order to address and deal with this new Wild22/143
West Frontier of information in the age of internet and social media. Because without these standards, expectations and responsibilities, we will end up facing consequences far more dangerous than we faced in the era of corrupt mainstream media dominant. In this report, we will showcase some solid journalistic reports and practices. We will also highlight some of those who do not adhere to basic ethics and standards in their23/143
actions when reporting. We will document the pitfalls or potential dangers we are all faced with in this evolving media landscape. And the gang, mentalities and tactics carried out on social media. This report will focus on two of these self proclaimed journalists, Vanessa Bealey and Eva Bartlett. I became aware of Vanessa Bealey and Eva Bartlett about a year ago. It started with a few emails I received24/143
asking me to interview them and provide coverage for their reporting via NewsWide. Then I was contacted by a few other entities, including those associated with the Syrian Solidarity Movement, and was asked to provide coverage of Bealey Bartlett claims and reports. After cursory research and speaking with a few reliable sources, I decided that there were some serious questions without concrete answers to be found, such as their25/143
funding, their expertise and past experiences, their track record, some of their associates, and most importantly, their very black and white, very one-sided reports on Syria. With that, I decided not to interview them or disseminate their reports until further clarification. We spoke with independent author and researcher Dr. Barbara McKenzie, who has traveled the Syria multiple times. Dr. McKenzie previously worked with Vanessa Bealey and Eva Bartlett at26/143
21st century wire. I became acquainted with a lot of people who were doing work on Syria because that's my own interest. Having been to Syria myself, and that included Vanessa Bealey and Eva Bartlett, particularly Vanessa Bealey and the relationship grew from there. I started writing things myself, which they promoted. I promoted their stuff and I published some material through 21st century wire. So the relationship, what27/143
became a friendship of a kind, lasted about two years. So we had regular contact for most of that time at a personal level. Zach Alsof is an American of Syrian origin, with both parents coming from Damascus. His father had important links with the governments of both Assad's. Zach left the U.S. when he was 21 receiving a bachelor's degree in international studies at the American University of28/143
Kuwait, and a master's degree in diplomacy at the American University in Dubai. Zach was living in Syria when the war began. It began in March of 2011, and I left Syria. I was living in Syria at that time, teaching English. And I left in November of 2011. I was there during the first eight months of the war. And then I made two visits in 2013. I29/143
moved there in December of 2015 and stayed till May of 2016. And then I came back August and stayed all the way till May of last year. When I met Ivo, she was there. We had a cup of coffee. And I was trying to figure out, actually invited her and then she introduced me to him and I invited him for a cup of coffee. And the30/143
funny thing is that I was very nice to them. I gave them my dad's book about Syria. He wrote this and back. He started in the year 2000, finished it in 2005. It's called Syria and the struggle continues for the greatest Middle East. And it was like predicting my dad's predicting these events coming up right now with the Syrian crisis. So he felt it was coming,31/143
but you're no exactly when I gave her the book and I had an extra book with me. So I was like, hey, why don't I just give it to him? I dropped her off the station to go to Lebanon and gave her some money. As she said, she didn't have that much money and she needed money for a camera or a laptop. I spoke at length32/143
with Paul LaRoude, one of the board members of the Syrian Solidarity Movement in the United States, whom I had met in the past and whose work I respect. He was very frank about his work with the movement. He told me that his last visit to Syria was in 2013 because the Syrian government has been rejecting his subsequent entry visa requests. During this conversation, he was very33/143
candid about Billy and Bartlett's lack of qualifications as either journalists or analysts, their lack of in-depth knowledge when it comes to the Middle East and Syria, absence of educations or any knowledge in geopolitics and journalism, and the absence of quality fact-checking and verification in their work. We spoke with another former colleague of Billy, Scott Gulky, who worked with her for several years and is referred to34/143
as Nav Steva throughout this report. Gulky is a former congressional candidate and an expert on Syria in the Middle East. Gulky or Dav Steva also testified to Billy's complete lack of knowledge and naivete on Syria and the Middle East in general. Nav Steva also provided documentation of Billy's not so long ago past where she held a very anti-Assad, anti-Syria, and anti-Aran position. Promoting the CIA manufactured35/143
Arab Spring. As well as suggesting, President Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attacks in Guta in 2013. Even accusing the Syrian government of torture while promoting the U.S. war on terror that was seeking regime change in Syria. These tweets were later scrubbed and Billy asked Nastyava to keep them secret. Theğan County Pizza Hut. We would also like to thank Scott Galki, former colleague of Vanessa36/143
Bili, who provided us with documented information on Bili's not long ago promotions for and campaigned against serious President Assad and her support and promotion for U.S. NATO-backed Arab Spring operations. Look, it is one thing for a person to change her or his position and opinion. But in this case, Vanessa Bili, instead of owning up to her past operations and stand, false information dissemination, went about bleeding37/143
and hiding all public documentation of her past. Of course, her former colleagues, her former bosses, they kept screenshots of these communications. Not only that, she begged people, she begged her former colleague to join in in her secrets and never make her history public. One has to ask, why? A couple of months ago, after receiving certain reports pertaining to these two self-proclaimed journalists, and after personally experiencing38/143
highly troublesome actions and allegations by the stew. We at NewsBud began investigating these two real pasts, real funding, their associates, and their past reports and claims. I interviewed several dozen of sources for this research, including other alternative journalists and reputable activists, intimately familiar with this stew's operations, their past colleagues, real Syrian from different side, pro-government, anti-government, neutral Syrians, those in Syria, those in refugee camps, and39/143
Syrian expats around the world. Journalism experts as well, with expertise in ethical journalism, a board member of the Syrian solidarity movement, a major past donor, doctors who have been to Syria, forensic experts, and more. Here is testimony from former Billy and Bartlett colleague Dr. McKenzie, stating that Billy pressured her to omit facts and censor one of her articles. In 2016, I wrote an article referring to40/143
the liberation of Malula, and Vanessa Billy contacted me and essentially ordered me to remove all references to his balar and effected initially the Syrian Arab army, because she had been talking to someone who was there at the liberation of Malula, and she was only the local militias, with maybe a little help from the Syrian Arab army. And I spent many hours researching what we already knew.41/143
I looked from research to everybody from the BBC to Al-Muzda, and found that indeed the Syrian Arab army and his balar liberated Malula, but Billy, however, didn't budge, was furious that I wouldn't change my article purely on who say so and despite the evidence. What is even more incredible is I was not telling anyone that came from her. I don't know what I was supposed to42/143
put down as a source for this weird position I was supposed to take, but she expected me to go out on them, go against my better judgement and not even rely on her to back me up. This is quite an extraordinary thing to do. I certainly doesn't sound like journalistic ethics to me. I just found the whole thing quite dishonest, really. I provided and carried on43/143
providing sources which made it very clear that his balar played a major role in the liberation of Malula. None of this meant anything to Vanessa Baley, she wanted me to change my article to sense my article on who say so and most strangely, not to mention that it was on her say so. Vanessa Baley and even Bartlett portray themselves as being independent and reliable journalists who44/143
have fearlessly reported from on the ground inside Syria. As you just heard from former colleague Dr. McKenzie, Vanessa Baley was pressuring her to omit facts from her report. Why would Baley do this? Especially when these facts were well documented, debunking Baley's claims that Hezbollah was not involved in the liberation of Malula. This is just one example of unreliable and unethical journalistic practices by the Baley Bartlett45/143
duo. Another example comes from Zach, who was wrongly accused and attacked by Baley and Bartlett, claiming that Zach betrayed Syria. This Eva Bartlett lady, talking accusing me of dodging the Syrian military. Some lot of Syrians got disappointed, that's what they saw, that in the contact with me. Some of the these smart journalists that they think they're smart and invested researchers that didn't know it realized that46/143
I got this military exemption. I paid $3,000 in 2008. They don't know about it, maybe they'll know about it now. 2008 I paid for my Syrian military exemption. And I was in Borne in Syria. I didn't grow up in Syria. And if I joined the military, they don't realize that I'm going to have a Syrian passport and have a US passport. Or they could keep on47/143
going with the lies and giving people this information. That's proof of this information. To this day, there has been no retraction issued. Perhaps the most damage was done by Bartlett. When she spoke at a press conference, put together by the US peace council, sponsored by the Syrian government. When Bartlett made several false claims, one of these false claims is that the Al-Quds hospital in Aleppo was48/143
never bombed. I'm sure you've heard in the media that hospitals have been attacked. Well, this media is referring to the pockets of Aleppo that were occupied by terrorists. And they have manufactured stories. And I can give you a precise account. In April of this year, there was a hospital called the Al-Quds Hospital, which in a concerted effort, all media said was attacked and targeted and badly49/143
damaged by either the Syrians or the Russians. In fact, the Russians had satellite imagery showing that this hospital was in the same shape that it was in in October 2015. No difference. Therefore, it was not attacked. This has been thoroughly debunked with reports from doctors without borders. The mainstream media, the alternative media, Syrians on the ground and imagery. The Bili Bartlett gang has since tried to50/143
walk back their false claims that the hospital was not bombed by saying, okay, so it was not totally destroyed. But the fact is that the hospital has suffered many attacks and has been closed and reopened several times. Therefore it was not attacked. And to this day, there has been no retraction issued. Another major piece of misinformation from Bartlett at that same press conference was the accusation51/143
that children are being recycled in different reports inside Syria. Stating that a young Syrian girl named Aya was used in three separate reports where she was allegedly being rescued after a bombing. Thus rendering the rescue images and videos as fict or staged. Children that have been recycled in different reports, you can find a girl named Aya who turns up in a report in month, say August52/143
and she turns up in the next month in two different locations. This has also been debunked by several outlets stating that it is beyond a reasonable doubt that these images are of three different girls and they are not the same girl being recycled. Now it has been stated by members of the Syrian Solidarity Movement as well as by Syrians and Syrian activists that Bartlett caused great53/143
damage that day to the pro-Syrian movement by making these false claims at this press conference. This type of damage may be felt for some time as any future legitimate exposure of staged or fake rescue operations, whether they are conducted by the White Helmets propaganda constructs or others, the credibility will always be questioned linking back to this event. When these utterly false claims were made, especially in54/143
such a public way, to this day there has been no retraction issued. These are just some of the more well-known examples there are many more which will be covered in future reports. We contacted Vanessa Bealey and Eva Bartlett and invited them both to be our guests to be included in this report to provide comments and responses. Our request was ignored. The same way that they have55/143
ignored or attacked anyone who has questioned their so-called facts. We understand that nobody is perfect and sometimes mistakes are made. It happens, but there is a procedure based on journalistic ethics when errors or mistakes occur and that is issuing a public retraction. One of the advice we give when we conduct interviews or publish is say, look, there is an honor about news organization reporters actually issuing56/143
retraction when it's needed. It's not a matter of ego because we all make mistakes. We are all human. These stories are so easy to fix online. You say this story has been corrected, a previous version of this story contained inaccurate information and then you say what the inaccurate information is and you say how you corrected it. That's very easy to do. Also, the most important thing57/143
is to correct it in the archives because other journalists will use that story in future coverage. Getting the archive corrected is crucial. We have received many documented reports on how this duo has been stealing other researchers and independent journalists work and research and using it as their own without providing any credit. This is called plagiarism and it's against journalistic ethics. The White Hommels were first exposed