{"id":42077,"date":"2014-04-28T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T11:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=42077"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:35:04","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:35:04","slug":"new-york-times-tries-to-whitewash-publication-of-faked-ukraine-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/04\/new-york-times-tries-to-whitewash-publication-of-faked-ukraine-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Times Tries to Whitewash Publication of Faked Ukraine Photos"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times<\/em> responded yesterday [23 Apr 2014] to the exposure of its fabricated report alleging that Russian Special Forces are stirring up protests in east Ukraine against the pro-Western regime in Kiev.<\/p>\n

An article Tuesday [22 Apr 2014], titled \u201cScrutiny over Photos Said to Tie Russia Units to Ukraine<\/a>,\u201d is a clumsy attempt at damage control. Buried in the paper\u2019s inside pages, the article begins: \u201cA collection of photographs that Ukraine says shows the presence of Russian forces in the eastern part of the country, and which the United States has cited as evidence of Russian involvement, has come under scrutiny.\u201d The Times<\/em> also noted that \u201cUS officials\u201d provided some of the pictures to US Secretary of State John Kerry before his talks with Russian, European and Ukrainian officials last Thursday in Geneva.<\/p>\n

The Times<\/em> does not bother to mention that it featured these faked images in a front-page article and photo spread. It was the Times<\/em> that used its influence to declare \u201cthe presence of Russian forces in the eastern part of the country\u201d as part of a propaganda campaign against Russia. Even its own attempt to explain the \u201cscrutiny\u201d the photos came under shows, however, that the Times<\/em> was a party to a grotesque falsification.<\/p>\n

One set of photographs, the Times<\/em> writes, \u201cshows a uniformed man with a long beard who was photographed this year in Slovyansk and Kramatorsk and who, the Ukrainians assert, was also photographed during Russian combat operations in Georgia in 2008, wearing a Special Forces patch\u2026 Some observers have asked whether the man photographed in Georgia is the same person photographed in eastern Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

If \u201cobservers\u201d have questioned the images, it is because higher-resolution versions of the Times<\/em>\u2019 photos available online show quite clearly that the two are different people. The alleged Russian soldier in Georgia is thinner and has a reddish beard, while the bearded man photographed in eastern Ukraine is stouter and has a greying black beard.<\/p>\n

(Click here for full resolution<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The images at the left are the ones presented by the New York Times<\/em> as evidence that the Russian Special Forces soldier (upper left with red beard) in Georgia in 2008 is the same man in a recent conflict in Kramatorsk. Higher resolution images of the same photos show they are not the same man.<\/p>\n

The two men looked similar only because the Times<\/em> published only low-resolution, black and white versions of the images available online.<\/p>\n

The Times<\/em> also admitted there was a \u201cquestion\u201d over a \u201cgroup photograph taken in Russia\u201d that featured prominently in its report. The Times<\/em> used the photo to claim that the men in the photo were Russian soldiers, and that other pictures of the men, taken in Slovyansk, were proof that the Russian soldiers were infiltrating Ukraine.<\/p>\n

In fact, the Times\u2019<\/em> claim that the \u201cgroup photograph\u201d was \u201ctaken in Russia\u201d was a lie. \u201cIt was taken in Slovyansk,\u201d the photographer who took the picture, freelancer Maxim Dondyuk, told the Times<\/em>. \u201cNobody asked my permission to use this photograph.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Times<\/em> article shows that the \u201cnewspaper of record\u201d did not engage in the most elementary fact-checking of material it was handed by the Kiev regime and the US State Department, before plastering the alleged \u201cevidence\u201d on its front page.<\/p>\n

This raises the question of how the Times<\/em>\u2019 photo report was published in the first place. Either the Times<\/em> editors rammed through the piece and its blurry photos without any independent examination, or the editors did check the story, saw it was a grotesque falsification, and published it anyway.<\/p>\n

In either case, the Times<\/em> functioned not as a legitimate journalistic outlet, but as a propaganda agency of the state.<\/p>\n

Several additional questions are raised:<\/p>\n