They never learn

In this case "they" are not the politicians but the next group in the low-life stakes, journalists of the MSM. As it happens, we have not written much about the momentous events in Iran, partly because it is hard to fit them into the pattern of this blog and partly because they have been widely covered.

I suspect we shall have to change that attitude just as I have changed my entirely negative attitude to twitter - in some cases that rather ridiculous idea has enormous uses. Indeed, cyber-technology has shown its awesome powers and not the way the Iranian mullahs would have liked it. (Not to mention the State Department that has explained that their desire to be friendly with the Iranian regime has not been affected by recent developments.)

One story that has been covered widely is the shooting of Neda, a medical student who stood next to her father watching what was going on. Again, the story has been widely covered by various media outlets, including the Financial Times that has managed to live up to its reputation of being somewhat less than entirely reliable in its reporting of foreign news.

"Web video of woman dying in street becomes image of Iran protests", says the headline of Najmeh Bozorgmehr's story from Tehran. Nothing wrong with that, one might think until one reads the first paragraph:

The footage of a Palestinian man being shot dead next to his 12-year-old son, Muhammad Jamal al-Durrah, by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2000 has been etched in the minds of many Iranians, as state television has continually replayed the images to highlight the “Zionist regime’s brutality.”

Now, the Islamic regime itself has become the subject of similar allegations at home and abroad after gruesome footage of a dying young woman during the suppression of an opposition protest on Saturday was released on the internet.

Etched or otherwise, ladies and gentlemen of the Financial Times, the Al-Dura story and images are fakes. We have followed the story to some extent ourselves but the expert on the subject is Richard Landes who has an update on Augean Stables and on Pajamas Media (where one commenter enquires about those demonstrations against the Iranian regime's behaviour towards Iranian people).

One cannot help wondering who does the research on that venerable rag, the Financial Times.

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