Wat staat vast? Eva Bartlett

Is Eva Bartlett credible?

Eva Bartlett's border crossing journalism showed at long last the people’s perspective of the Syrian war against terrorism. Bartlett talks figures and proportions, and expands your desk research with facts that she documented as a witness on site. Her stark observations have upset an entire media industry. But she engages in dialogue, and she documents her observations in detail; a stress test for integrity and coherence. Bartlett is outspoken about social injustice and inaccurate media. Such engagement and candor can be seen as a bonus. An heretic in journalism will be challenged and has to work harder. Taking position means you invite the scrutiny of critics. The transparency of partisanship helps any curious critic to scale the spectrum of sources, viewpoints and stakeholders and allow a comparison of narratives to more effectively find consistency (or facts) and inconsistency /falsehoods.

Bartlett has exposed a tradition of lazy research and poor journalism in prominent mainstream-media of the 21st century, the Neo-liberal era. But now she seems to be subjected to a smear campaign for lack of a better argument. Observe her fact finding ability and analysis, while she politely shatters a bastion of pretentiousness:

Compare this well-documented single engine press mosquito to a corporate newscaster from CNN where fact-checking is often entirely absent, as the news is served as it was delivered by media affiliates or special interest groups - often through an uneducated mouthpiece or an establishment associate. (Who knew for instance Mrs. Amanpour married a US State dept. PR-professional? That Anderson Cooper was trained by the CIA? That Mr. (big media) Murdoch himself (and Dick Cheney, …) has a stake in occupied Golan - co-owning mining firm Genie.) Who’d thought state agencies took such a deceptive role.)

Mind you, a free press is also free to ignore the truth. A free market does not guarantee a balanced flow of relevant information in public channels especially if the public is the product - for the advertisers. Our corporate media have too often parroted the War party (Neocons), and their afilliates in the military-industrial complex. That is exactly how the Iraq war could develop and be waged on faulty intelligence (…according to regretful WashPo and CBS journalists, 2004). Unfortunately that failure is not a thing of the past.
 

Bartlett’s reports of Syria have countered a media narrative that has been leaning on assumptions for lack of reliable source contacts nor Western journalists on-site. (As their insurance won’t cover that.) Her determination to go off-limits to find the facts, and her measured, nuanced choice of words seem to reveal a passion for truth.

What is credible or not credible was explained by Eva Bartlett herself when she scoured a media colleague for ‘'Building conclusions on allegations, citing dubious and unknown sources, time and again… One, two times maybe, but every time? Not credible."

I’d say, hats off for a courageous investigator who has shed a light on an issue littered with deception, perhaps as complex as the Vietnam war was in the time of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon papers (1971).