Doctoring Audio And Video Clips To Fit The Republican Line

[kpete]

Doctoring Audio And Video Clips To Fit The Republican Line
-- by Dave Johnson

Get ready for a new kind of attack in this year's campaign.

More and more I am hearing about doctored audio and video circulating. For example, on May 9 http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/10/gore-cylcones-clip-doctored/ conservative news outlets were pushing a story that was based on an audio clip that "spliced and doctored an NPR interview of Al Gore in order to allege that Gore said something which he did not."http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/05/09/right-wing-gore-cyclone/

On May 15 "CNN edited a video clip of Obama communications director Robert Gibbs to remove from the middle of a paragraph his statement about Bush's Defense Secretary calling for talks with Iran the day before Bush said Obama was an "appeaser" for saying exactly the same thing.

The right and corporate media are becoming more comfortable with this tactic, so check and double-check everything you are hearing to be sure it is true before you let it influence your thinking.

http://www.seeingtheforest.com/archives/2008/05/doctoring_audio.htm

[HCE SuiGeneris]

1. K & R

[HCE SuiGeneris]

2. K & R

[bleever]

3. Fox has been showing the clip of Michelle Obama

with the word "really" edited out of her "proud of my country" quote (also used in the TN GOP ad) and not even the Democratic guests point it out.

[dreamnightwind]

8. also cnn and msnbc

On the Dan Abrams show and Lou Dobbs I saw lengthy discussions of the Rethug attack ad that uses the edited Michelle Obama statement (oddly, there are 2 versions of the edit going around, one where the word "really" is cleanly removed, and another where the R sound is still there but the rest of the word "really" is removed. The attack ad used the version with the R sound still in it). Neither show mentioned the edit! In fact on both shows they repeated the edited phrase as fact (either the host or the guests on the show), so they were spreading the lie.

Now, it's a fairly subtle difference (whether or not "really" is in there), but it's significant, and it's a lie they were caught in long ago. I find it hard to believe these people didn't have prior knowledge of the edit.

I sent a detailed email to Abrams about what he'd done, with links to the edited and unedited statements of Michelle's, yet I got no response and he didn't read the email or air a correction on his show.

How can this go on? Even I, already hopelessly cynical when it comes to the MSM, have a hard time believing it. The edit should BE the story, not the attack ad. The story should be the rethugs are airing this attack ad using a modified statement!

Thanks for the links to other examples of this, I'll check them out. I think we should get on their case about it, make some noise. If we don't, we'll see more of this kind of thing.

[Indenturedebtor]

4. Isnt there a law against this?

Someone should sue!

Sue the bastards Al Gore!

[annabanana]

5. We have to be extremely vigilant

to make sure these splice & dice attacks don't gain traction. The only way to counter them is to get the UNspliced and UNdiced version on the "tubes" as quickly as possible....

THEN we have to call the corpo outlet on the bullshit..LOUD AND OFTEN!!

[Ian_rd]

6. Rove and others inside the Bush administration realized something a few years ago

That is, that they can outright lie through the major media outlets and it would not get corrected until long after it mattered, if it got corrected at all. The game used to be to spin the facts that were being reported as to best reflect the administration line. But thanks to media consolidation and the Republicans' skill at using the media as their propaganda arm, the game has changed. Now they can go on television and say something that is easily demonstrably false, but it will get a total free pass.

Sure, Think Progress, Mother Jones, the Nation, and the Guardian will correct such things, but who the hell reads those sources? Hardly a fraction of the people who consumed the original lie, that's who.

Lying is so incredibly easy now that it shouldn't come as a surprise that it has become a central aspect of governance for the Right.

[Perry Logan]

7. That's pretty much the definition of a Republican: one who repeats lies over and over and over.

[Tippy]

9. I believe it was Karl Rove who said

Tell a lie often and they will believe you...not sure if is his exact words but you get the picture

[Richard Steele]

10. K&R

[spanone]

11. fucking criminal

[Truth2Tell]

12. Kick. nt