How the ‘alt-media’ (mis)covers Syria

Oubai Shahbandar

Oubai Shahbandar

The Western media is rife with references to this new phenomenon known as the “alt-right,” a neologism meant to describe an ostensible collection of ethnic nationalists and a non-politically correct movement that masks a more sinister fascist undercurrent.

A new “alt-media” is also rising, shaping how the conflict in Syria and its people’s suffering are perceived by millions of average consumers of the Western press.

Why use the term “alt-media”? Because their narrative of Syria is mired in an alternate universe. Increasingly, we are witnessing a trend among mainstream media outlets of affirming moral equivalency between the Syrian regime and the forces that oppose it. More and more, media reports of the conflict blur the lines that assign complicity for war crimes. Indeed, among many senior Western policymakers, the common refrain of “there are no good sides to this war” is a reflection of the false narrative being broadcast to the world that describes a story more amicable to the Syrian regime.

For the regime to “win” the media war, all it needs is for the international mainstream media to enable President Bashar Assad to maintain a semblance of international recognition of the legitimacy of his rule, thereby normalizing his regime’s barbaric and medieval methods to maintain power.

This is the crux of the “alt-media” narrative that ultimately weakens the case against Assad as a genocidal megalomaniac bent on killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in order to remain in power. How is this possible? Simple. Media outlets such as the BBC, and in some instances CNN — whether by design, or an editorial policy geared more toward increasing clicks and viewers than uncovering difficult facts — leave their viewers in doubt about how the horrible violence in Syria came to be. For instance, the viral photo of Syrian child Omran Daqneesh momentarily caught the West’s sympathy. The international media headlined the photo of Daqneesh, who was bloodied and covered by the rubble he was pulled out from following a Russian-backed regime airstrike on his home. Yet while the world’s media brought the image into the homes of everyday American and European families, a crucial piece of the full picture was left out: Who was behind the airstrike that almost killed Daqneesh, and killed many members of his family?

That moment when the Western media refused to cite in their headlines that the wanton airstrike was launched by Assad and Russia is the very moment that the “alt-media” took control of the narrative of Syria.

The White House went on record sympathizing with the “refugee,” but Daqneesh was no refugee; he was just another average Syrian child targeted by Assad and Russian aircraft. The full impact of the viral photo of Daqneesh was diluted by an “alt-media” that refused to assign blame over who was targeting the children of Syria. The outcome of this alternative narrative gives birth to the mistaken notion that while tragic, the war in Syria has produced victims on “all sides.” The “alt-media” conveniently sidesteps the reality that there is one side, and one side only, in Syria today that is employing a systemic and deliberate policy of extermination.

The neighborhoods being pulverized by Assad and Russian aircraft and missiles are specifically being targeted and wiped off the map as part of an overall military strategy. In this vein, the BBC ignores or conveniently forgets the 2014 Human Rights Watch report and accompanying satellite imagery that describes in detail the regime’s strategy of collective punishment against residents of opposition-held areas. Instead, as a regime intelligence officer “minder” watches over their shoulder, a recent BBC report from western Aleppo quoted a “random” bystander celebrating in a popular restaurant with loud music playing in the background: “I think this celebration is even more important than it was last year or the years before the war.”

The “alt-media” manages to ensure that the average viewer forgets that this war actually began as a peaceful civil uprising when millions of Syrians demanded justice and reform, but were met with bullets and torture by regime forces.

Similarly, just last week the “alt-media” refused to assign appropriate blame when the regime and Russian special forces — covertly forward-deployed to Aleppo to aid Iranian and Hezbollah militias — launched in broad daylight an artillery and mortar attack that killed dozens of families, mostly women and children, fleeing their destroyed homes.

The “alt-media” — ensconced in their own reality, courtesy of regime- and Russian-sponsored hotels and Potemkin-village tours in Syria — could not be bothered to report the uncomfortable truth.

Since a recent Politico piece unveiled, much to the regime’s chagrin, how Russian special forces were on the ground in Aleppo — contrary to the Kremlin’s official denial — there has been silence by other major international media in following up on this important story.

This is precisely why the regime knows that it can distract and deploy decoys with the “alt-media” for every instance in which a mainstream Western reporter does directly confront the regime to answer for its crimes. This was done recently in Damascus by a New York Times reporter in an interview with Assad, who laughed off and dismissed difficult questions that brought into focus the genocide that he is overseeing.

He laughed because he could just as easily sway international opinion via an “alt-media” peddling enticing stories of the normalcy of Syria under his rule. The world is blind to the regime’s coldly calculating plan to ensure that blood and misery continue to pour in an information vacuum that does not make headlines and does not move the world’s hearts and minds to put a stop to it all.

• Oubai Shahbandar is a former Department of Defense senior adviser, and currently a strategic communications consultant specializing in Middle Eastern and Gulf affairs.

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