Carla Ortiz on what went wrong with western media coverage of Syria's war

Bolivian actress and documentarian Carla Ortiz is one of the very small number of Westerners who've been brave enough to travel around Syria to see the conflict for themselves and to independently report on their impressions.   

In her interview with Sputnik about Western news reporting on the Syrian conflict she remarked that the media had made many mistakes. "We succumbed to the news without verifying their sources." 

I think if you talked with Voltaire Network's Thierry Meyssan, Land Destroyer's Tony Cartalucci or the anonymous author of Moon of Alabama, they'd tell you there were no mistakes. But Carla is not naive; she understands the large role that propaganda played in framing the war to the public. Yet she conveys the simple point that the blind can't see:

"On all of the six fronts of the Syrian war that I’ve been to, including eastern Aleppo, I’ve never seen any foreign reporters save for those from Russia Today. So how can people who've never been there cover the battle for the city’s liberation or report that Aleppo is in flames? I’ve been in a firefight and can relay my experience, but where do they get their stories?"

From this perspective the Syrian War is a parable about the consequences of being too clever by half. The foreign powers that wielded propaganda to hide the truth about Syria created a situation so dangerous that they had to depend on others to learn what was going on in the country. And so in their quest to blind the public they themselves ended up blinded.  

The entire interview with Carla is worth the read. And I very much hope that "Voice of Syria," her forthcoming documentary, will be made available to all audiences. It's scheduled for theatrical release in Bolivia and Syria in June 2017.

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