I have just heard some heartbreaking news. This morning, a little boy, Marcel Shadi Nemeh, died of his wounds in hospital after sustaining them last Sunday in an attack by Nusra Front terrorists on his home in Skeilbiyyeh, Syria. In that same attack, his brother Bashar was killed, along with three other children who were innocently playing in a monastery courtyard and some in their own homes.

But you will not be seeing Marcel’s angelic face all over your TV screens tonight. Nor little Bashar’s. Because that would be a sane world, one in which humanity governs the way in which our news media responds to such atrocity. But in this world, empathy is sidelined and expediency dictates the responses of ‘journalists’ who long ago sold their souls for a six-figure salary.

For the corporate media these murdered children are simply the wrong kind of victims, no matter they are innocent children. These brothers are not the kind of poster boys useful to ‘professionals’ who sell themselves daily for a monetary reward that can never be enough to buy them a clear conscience. Think I’m being overly dramatic? Ask John Pilger who, in his must-view film, The War We Don’t See, told ITN’s David Mannion that his reporters had ‘blood on their hands.’ Or watch the draw-dropping documentary, The Veto, in which corporate TV stations, including Channel 4 News, are caught fabricating reports for the consumption of the British public.

Marcel and Bashar’s beyond tragic and utterly needless deaths do not support the official line on Syria, which is that ‘moderate rebels’ (AKA Al Nusra and other extremist Jihadist groups) are engaged in a noble fight against the monster Assad, and, therefore, anything threatening that mendacious line will simply be made invisible.  Please, then, look at the faces of Marcel and Bashar now in the picture below and into the faces of his mother and the other grieving women at his coffin this afternoon (below) and absorb the enormity of the crime that has taken the lives of these two innocent boys.

And then ask yourself, what kind of evil is abroad that can perpetrate this kind of depravity? Syrian Wissam Sliman’s words may help us answer that question: 

The whole world must know that there’s a mother in Syria whose first child was massacred in a terrorist attack last week but she didn’t have time to mourn him because she was praying for her second son to survive, and today she lost him, her second child. US, #UK and France have crossed all the lines, they can no more be described as monsters, because even monsters wouldn’t dare to reach to this level of criminality, it’s beyond description and beyond comprehension. 

Wissam, with all the anguish of a Syrian watching this horror show unfold in his own land, reminds us that it is the British government, as well as those of the United States and France that are leading this wave of atrocities under the banner of ‘humanitarian intervention’, that Orwellian phrase spoonfed to a gullible public which mandates the R2P (right to protect) strategy that has brought us the carnage of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and coming soon, Iran.

Are we not told that ‘we’ are supporting ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria? A lie so huge it rivals any falsehood concocted by whichever iniquitous government thirsty for power and profits you might care to name in the war ravaged annals of history. For this is an old story, played out time and time again in front of a willfully ignorant population always later astonished at the untruths they were told. Later. Later they are astonished, when it is all far too late. Too late for the little brothers in Skeilbiyyeh whose only mistake was being born in a country included on a list of targets written down by a psychopath at the Pentagon. Too late, also, for the other children killed this past week in Skeilbiyyeh and Nayrab, south-east of Aleppo:

On Tuesday, al-Nayrab camp was targeted by Jihadists killing six civilians, among them two children, and injuring fourteen others (see picture below):

Also on Tuesday, in Skeilbiyyeh, after Sunday’s attack, with the cries of those grieving mothers still resounding, another little boy, Mahmoud Hammad, was killed. Take a long look at his sweet face (below) because he, too, will be disappeared by the ‘mainstream’ media. The purity of his smile as he takes a selfie should strike any normal human being with the force of its innocence:

These are the children killed on Sunday in Skeilbiyyeh, among them, Bashar Nemeh, the other souls being Jessica Karajian, Suhair Adnan, and Engi Faisal Razouk:

I have difficulty stemming my anger when I look in these children’s eyes; when I think about their lives being stamped out by psychotic Jihadists funded by my own government! And when I know that our ‘trusted’ news media will never report their deaths. Wissam Sliman had his own reaction:

Now what?? Should we wait for more children to be massacred by the West and it’s terrorists?! What crime have we committed?! What crime have our children committed?! Are the defenders of the terrorists in Idleb happy now? Do they still want to send us more “freedom” and more “Democracy”?! I swear I can hear the holy souls of these little angels cursing every single one of those who have enabled these unprecedented atrocities….May God’s mercy be upon the souls of all our martyred angels.

What possible excuse can be offered by the journalists whose ostensible job it is to report the truth of the Syria conflict in ignoring these heinous murders? I have made sure to make Jon Snow of Channel 4 News aware of all these deaths. I have exchanged emails with him previously on Syria and other issues, but why him? Because he is the face of a programme which brands itself the most radical news source on British television: fiercely independent, daring to go where other news channels fear to tread, boldly holding power to account. That’s the myth, but I have written extensively on why this is a fantasy and it can be distilled into one sentence: Channel 4 News is a part of a profit driven corporation as much a slave to The Propaganda Model of media control as any other news programme or newspaper, and its journalists are selected for obedience to a ‘party line’ dictating strict loyalty to the narrative offered them by their official sources – the same sources which lied about Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and are now lying about Syria.

Read Vanessa Beeley – a real journalist who has reported exhaustively from on the ground in Syria bringing out first-hand testimonies and effectively single-handedly exposing the White Helmets for the ‘propaganda construct inside Syria’ which John Pliger says they are, giving full credit to Vanessa for her outstanding investigation in his interviews and in the forward to Media Lens’s latest book, Propaganda Blitz. It is worth noting, however, that the people behind Media Lens, David Edwards and David Cromwell, although advocating the same opinion on the White Helmets as Pilger and Beeley, have never once, as far as I am aware, credited her for her vital work on this story which must have deeply influenced their opinion. Vanessa has been the target of a vicious propaganda campaign in the corporate media for telling the truth, and it seems even the fearless Media Lens have discovered that the self-censoring mechanism they have so thoroughly exposed in others is alive and well in their own psyches. I must confess, it is personally painful for me to have to say that their own silence on Vanessa’a work, as well as the murderous acts described above (and others) is a shameful chapter in their otherwise honorable history of media activism.

Only yesterday, continuing her crucial work, Vanessa interviewed ex-White Helmets. She writes on her Facebook page:

Just interviewed two former #WhiteHelmets in #Douma. They told me they had been given a choice of joining Jaish Al Islam or White-Helmets. They were promised $150 per month but received around $50. White-Helmets took the rest. White-Helmets leaders worked in partnership with Jaish Al Islam terrorists and had same extremist ideology. White-Helmets leaders main role was to organise staging of events to criminalise Syrian Arab Army and to protect Jaish Al Islam. More details to follow. I also interviewed SARC volunteers and Doctors working in Douma throughout the terrorist occupation.

So whilst Vanessa Beeley is relentlessly uncovering the lies that underpin the entire rapacious imperialist Syria project, what is Jon Snow doing? Parroting his masters’ message that’s what. How does this man reconcile his pose as a journalist with humanity, honesty and integrity when he has been exposed in refusing to report such atrocities as the 2018 Sweida massacre in Syria in which 180 civilians were killed in cold blood? A search of the Channel 4 News website still brings up this result:

His replies to me by email on this case are a testament to what I can only label as a distasteful combination of arrogance and mendacity: 

From: Alison Banville <>
Sent: 29 July 2018 13:41
To: Snow, Jon
Subject: Sweida 
Hi Jon
I can’t seem to find any reference to the Sweida massacre by ISIS in Syria on the Channel 4 News website. Has it been reported at all by the programme? Considering 250 civilians were killed it would seem newsworthy? 
Regards
Alison

From: “Snow, Jon” <jon.snow@itn.co.uk>
To: Alison Banville <> 
Sent: Sunday, 29 July 2018, 19:48
Subject: Re: Sweida

Alison, I’m pretty sure we did report it on Channel 4 News..I will try to track it down..thanks for drawing me attention.
Best wishes
Jon Snow

From: Alison Banville <>
Sent: 07 October 2018 17:18
To: Snow, Jon
Subject: Sweida Hi Jon
Further to your reply to me below regarding the horrific Sweida massacre in Syria in which you said you ‘think’ Channel 4 News covered it but you’ll check, there still appears to be nothing about it on the Channel 4 News website. 
Did the programme really not cover this atrocity? And if not, the question must be asked, why? 
Below is journalist Vanessa Beeley’s report from on the ground in the villages attacked by ISIS and the shocking testimony of witnesses. Isn’t this what Channel 4 News should have done if journalism is what you do? These are people begging for their voices to be heard. How can you justify not reporting this? https://bsnews.info/sweida-a-bloody-massacre-barely-registered-by-western-media-as-isis-slaughter-innocent-civilians-in-their-sleep/

From: “Snow, Jon” <jon.snow@itn.co.uk>
To: Alison Banville <> 
Sent: Sunday, 7 October 2018, 23:32
Subject: Re: Sweida

Hi Alison..alas since our last communication, our correspondent – Wahad has had to flee for her life. Like everyone else we are very stretched in Syria..we are now very dependent upon ‘stringers’. We have never been able to verify what happened..as in so many other cases…and we are reluctant to go beyond what we can verify for ourselves..I’m sorry if this displeases you…but the fake news, unsupported claims do Syria’s agonyand loss no favours.
Thanks for being in touch
best wishes,Jon

From: Alison Banville <>
Sent: 08 October 2018 10:15
To: Snow, Jon
Subject: Re: Sweida Hi Jon
Thanks for getting back to me. I’m interested in the circumstances of Wahad having to flee for her life? From whom? Can I ask you also, did you read Vanessa Beeley’s piece? I’m just trying to clarify if you’re saying her report contains unsupported claims? 
Many thanks

From: “Snow, Jon” <jon.snow@itn.co.uk>
To: Alison Banville <> 
Sent: Monday, 8 October 2018, 16:49
Subject: Re: Sweida

Alison you would be the first to criticise us..quite rightly..were we to disclose the nature of the threats..please if you love Syria don’t seek to imperil her citizens especially the tender likes of Wa’ad to the evils perpetrated by the British, the Americans, the Russians, and the Syrian Government itself – let alone ISIS and all the other crack pots. Thanks at least for your concern.Best wishesJon

From: Alison Banville <>
Sent: 09 October 2018 20:09
To: Snow, Jon
Subject: Wa’ad 
Sorry Jon, could I ask re your mention of Wa’ad, didn’t she leave Syria in 2016? And wasn’t she based in Aleppo when in the country? I’m just wondering as Sweida is way down in the south. And lastly (sorry to bang on) you referred to the ‘evils’ perpetrated in Syria by the British and Americans; can you be more specific on that?  
Many thanks once again for engaging. It is appreciated. 
Alison  

now, Jon <jon.snow@itn.co.uk>To:Alison Banville9 Oct 2018 at 22:01

Alison in the kindest nicest possible way..I have a very full-on diverse and difficult job to do..I cannot go on with this dialogue..I’ve given you a lot more time than I have given many others who write to me..I’m afraid i can’t take this any further.

Best wishes,

Jon

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‘Please if you love Syria don’t seek to imperil her citizens’. This is really unbelievable. Such willful distortion in light of Snow’s shameful record as a mouthpiece for the very forces responsible for so much of the Syrian people’s suffering. And how laughable that he imagines himself autonomous and influential. What an ego that can rationalise away the senseless slaughter of men, women and children. Because Snow can never say he did not know about the deaths of the innocent civilians in Sweida, nor the outrage of the murders this past week of the poor children in Skeillbiyyeh.

He is the worst kind of liar, because when he is in full possession of the facts he proceeds to lie barefaced to the Channel 4 News audience, colluding blatantly in the covering up of some of the wickedest crimes the British state has ever perpetrated. He is, as British ambassador Craig Murray, has designated his cohort, a whore; nothing more than that. Jon Snow is a regime change fanatic masquerading as a respectable, upstanding journalist, when in reality he shames himself and the entire journalistic profession. I sincerely hope the faces of the children of Skeilbiyyeh haunt his dreams.

In disposing of Jon Snow, however, we can also dispose of the whole corporate media, because when the ‘radical’ media is as corrupt as this, there is nowhere else to go in the ‘mainstream’ is there? Fake journalists like Snow peddling their government sources’ bullshit as objective news is ‘state stenography’ not journalism. And when it excuses murder on an unimaginable scale, as it has done for years, then it has become indistinguishable from the psychopaths in power it should be confronting.

Syria is the battleground for truth upon which real journalism is fighting at this very moment, with warriors like Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett deep in the fray, literally risking their lives to do what cowards like Snow and his morally gutless colleagues refuse to. There is no six-figure paycheck for the independent journalist, but we wouldn’t take it anyway. For some, integrity has no price. Consequently, we may not have the material comforts, the fame or the adulation of the corporate gang, but I will tell you one thing – we can look little Marcel Nemeh in the eye, and know we did all we could to speak the truth. 

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Alison Banville is co-editor at BSNews