INTRODUCTION
Lizzie Phelan was video interviewed over Skype by New York Times journalist Robert Mackey about her coverage of events in Libya and Syria and her criticisms of the mainstream western and GCC media in relation to events in those countries.
This was her first interview by a mainstream Western media organisation. Prior to the interview Lizzie was sent three questions outlining the general topics that would be covered. In some ways the interview veered away from those topics and so she decided to publish the questions that were outlined prior to the interview and her full answers to them because she felt it is important that full responses are given to the questions in particular, and while she made most of these points in the interview, there are some points that she omitted.
THE INTERVIEW
ROBERT MACKEY: Since your impressions of what is happening in Syria seem to be strikingly different from those of many foreign reporters who have worked there recently, I wanted to ask you about how you found your sources and what you think accounts for the different picture painted of the conflict by other journalists.
LIZZIE PHELAN: First of all I hope that you will give me the opportunity to answer all of your questions in full, so that the context, which is always lacking, can be provided. I also hope that you will ask all the questions that you proposed when I agreed to do this interview. If not I will myself publish the full questions and my full answers.
This question is flawed, because what you really mean is that my impressions of what is happening in Syria seem to be strikingly different from those reporters from the NATO and GCC countries [council for Arab states of the Gulf], which have a vested interest in destabilising Syria. Of course my impressions are actually shared by the majority people of this world, from those countries outside of NATO and the GCC and particularly those which are victims of these powers. But because they do not own a powerful media their voices are drowned out by the impressions of the minority reflected in the mainstream media of the NATO and GCC countries.
So in relation to my sources, I find my sources through a number of different means, but my main means is I talk to ordinary people everywhere I go and in Syria this is not difficult because people are really keen to speak about the crisis in their country, especially to foreigners who they feel strongly have a false impression about their country and current events. This was overwhelmingly, but of course not exclusively, the point of view that I encountered. And this is reflected in my reporting.
In fact, like in Libya, I was so overwhelmed by the volume of people that wanted to talk about their anger at the fabrications in the media of the NATO and GCC countries that my colleague Mostafa Afzalzadeh and I decided to make a documentary so that we could reflect what ordinary Syrian people are really saying. This documentary will actually expose how, if it was not for such media, the crisis in Syria would have been over before it started and the people of Syria would be living in peace now.
The difference with journalists from mainstream media in NATO and GCC countries is that they come with an agenda, and that agenda is to cover what they call a ‘revolution’ happening inside Syria and to give substance to the false claims that the Syrian government is a threat to the Syrian people. So if, for example, they walk down the street and they have 10 people telling them there is no revolution happening in Syria and actually the people want the army to protect them from the terrorists that are flooding the country, and then they have one person who tells them that there is no democracy in Syria, they will discard the 10 as government spies and run with the one person who said something different. I witnessed this myself.
If they were to do the reverse and reflect the majority view on the street, then this would undermine the coverage of their media organisations over the previous 10 months that have painted a picture of a government hated by its people, and in turn it would undermine their own credibility as journalists working for those organisations.
But in time they will not be able to suppress the truth. However, like in Libya the danger is that the truth only comes out when it is too late, when a country has been successfully destroyed by the NATO and GCC countries, with the vital help of their media. Then the western media can afford to be more honest, although never entirely, because the aims, for example of regime change, of their paymasters have been achieved.
I am, on the other hand, not concerned about toeing a line in order to ‘make it’ as a journalist working for one of the world’s most respected media organisations. I became a journalist in order to reflect the truth at whatever cost that may come. The only thing I am loyal to is my conscience.
Lizzie Phelan was video interviewed over Skype by New York Times journalist Robert Mackey about her coverage of events in Libya and Syria and her criticisms of the mainstream western and GCC media in relation to events in those countries.
This was her first interview by a mainstream Western media organisation. Prior to the interview Lizzie was sent three questions outlining the general topics that would be covered. In some ways the interview veered away from those topics and so she decided to publish the questions that were outlined prior to the interview and her full answers to them because she felt it is important that full responses are given to the questions in particular, and while she made most of these points in the interview, there are some points that she omitted.
THE INTERVIEW
ROBERT MACKEY: Since your impressions of what is happening in Syria seem to be strikingly different from those of many foreign reporters who have worked there recently, I wanted to ask you about how you found your sources and what you think accounts for the different picture painted of the conflict by other journalists.
LIZZIE PHELAN: First of all I hope that you will give me the opportunity to answer all of your questions in full, so that the context, which is always lacking, can be provided. I also hope that you will ask all the questions that you proposed when I agreed to do this interview. If not I will myself publish the full questions and my full answers.
This question is flawed, because what you really mean is that my impressions of what is happening in Syria seem to be strikingly different from those reporters from the NATO and GCC countries [council for Arab states of the Gulf], which have a vested interest in destabilising Syria. Of course my impressions are actually shared by the majority people of this world, from those countries outside of NATO and the GCC and particularly those which are victims of these powers. But because they do not own a powerful media their voices are drowned out by the impressions of the minority reflected in the mainstream media of the NATO and GCC countries.
So in relation to my sources, I find my sources through a number of different means, but my main means is I talk to ordinary people everywhere I go and in Syria this is not difficult because people are really keen to speak about the crisis in their country, especially to foreigners who they feel strongly have a false impression about their country and current events. This was overwhelmingly, but of course not exclusively, the point of view that I encountered. And this is reflected in my reporting.
In fact, like in Libya, I was so overwhelmed by the volume of people that wanted to talk about their anger at the fabrications in the media of the NATO and GCC countries that my colleague Mostafa Afzalzadeh and I decided to make a documentary so that we could reflect what ordinary Syrian people are really saying. This documentary will actually expose how, if it was not for such media, the crisis in Syria would have been over before it started and the people of Syria would be living in peace now.
The difference with journalists from mainstream media in NATO and GCC countries is that they come with an agenda, and that agenda is to cover what they call a ‘revolution’ happening inside Syria and to give substance to the false claims that the Syrian government is a threat to the Syrian people. So if, for example, they walk down the street and they have 10 people telling them there is no revolution happening in Syria and actually the people want the army to protect them from the terrorists that are flooding the country, and then they have one person who tells them that there is no democracy in Syria, they will discard the 10 as government spies and run with the one person who said something different. I witnessed this myself.
If they were to do the reverse and reflect the majority view on the street, then this would undermine the coverage of their media organisations over the previous 10 months that have painted a picture of a government hated by its people, and in turn it would undermine their own credibility as journalists working for those organisations.
But in time they will not be able to suppress the truth. However, like in Libya the danger is that the truth only comes out when it is too late, when a country has been successfully destroyed by the NATO and GCC countries, with the vital help of their media. Then the western media can afford to be more honest, although never entirely, because the aims, for example of regime change, of their paymasters have been achieved.
I am, on the other hand, not concerned about toeing a line in order to ‘make it’ as a journalist working for one of the world’s most respected media organisations. I became a journalist in order to reflect the truth at whatever cost that may come. The only thing I am loyal to is my conscience.
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