# Palestinians celebrating: CNN using old footage?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palestinians-celebrating-cnn-using-old-footage/81568
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [September 14, 2001, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palestinians-celebrating-cnn-using-old-footage/81568 "2001-09-14T11:53:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@toonerama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toonerama)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2001, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palestinians-celebrating-cnn-using-old-footage/81568/1 "2001-09-14T11:53:05Z")
This may be something or nothing. Rumours are spreading that the video footage of some Palestinians celebrating on September 11th is in fact a decade old.
I would like to hear any facts & opinoins about this.
You can see an article about this here:
[http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article\_id=63288](http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=63288)
For me, this site was very slow to load.
---
### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2001, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palestinians-celebrating-cnn-using-old-footage/81568/2 "2001-09-14T14:25:44Z")
Eh, “rumors” are not “spreading”–it’s only one particular angry, paranoid person who happens to think this.
Toonerama, that link isn’t to an “article”, it’s to a message board, where the OP of the linked thread is saying that CNN is using old footage. There’s a difference between an “article” and a “thread”. And I notice that several people responding to the OP are saying basically the same thing I am–“um, no, not very likely…” And there are a number of calls in the thread for the OP to digitize his 1991 footage and post it, but so far he hasn’t.
And the thread is full of angry, ugly, hateful people, not an “article” at all. The OP says he’s from Brazil, and he closes his post with this:
> [@](#):
>
> …the truth is that US government had
> shown no respect for other countries in the last decades. In the 60s and
> 70s they had halped lots of military coups throughout the world
> (including Brazil in 64). Later, with Reagan and Bush Father, the
> Washington Consensus have been demolishing the bases of our economies,
> making us more and more dependant (and, many of us, prehocupied with
> this situation).
>
> Your current president quickly made things worse: Kioto Protocol, Star
> Wars, Colombia Plan, the exchange of rain forest for pieces of external
> debt, tha abandonment of the position of third party in negotiations
> between IRA and England, and between Palestinians and Israel. All those
> mistakes in US external politics made your country more hatred than
> before, and, of course, more vulnerable.
>
> Listen, I’m NOT justifying the terrorist actions that took place in your
> country; but it seems to me that, if your leaders had come along another
> path of thoughts and actions, you wouldn’t be suffering what you are
> now.
If that’s your only source for this rumor… :rolleyes:
I have a lot of respect for CNN as a news-gathering organization, and a healthy suspicion of conspiracy theories (unlike half the posters in the linked thread). Why in the world would CNN want to rummage through the files to find some old video footage of Palestinians dancing to illustrate a story as emotionally loaded as this one? I never thought of them as the _People_ magazine “let’s push America’s buttons” type. “Any footage at all will do, because we know it happened so it doesn’t matter how old it is…”
That doesn’t sound right.
And consider the consequences when (not “if”) they’re caught. “CNN fakes Palestinians dancing in the streets, celebrating America’s downfall”. Because without the actual video of the woman in the coke bottle glasses, there’s really no story, is there? It’s all in the images.
Have they ever done this before? Usually if they’re going to use old footage, it says “File” on the bottom.
---
### Author:  [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2001, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palestinians-celebrating-cnn-using-old-footage/81568/3 "2001-09-14T16:37:34Z")
Hey **Duck**? I’m not arguing with your conclusion–there’s no basis to think that CNN used old footage–but aside from the obviously subjective “demolished” and “quickly made things worse,” with what stated facts in the passage you quoted do you take issue? (All right, the last clause of that message is debatable at best, as well–not to mention unquestionably tasteless.)
---
### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2001, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palestinians-celebrating-cnn-using-old-footage/81568/4 "2001-09-14T16:41:23Z")
The question of whether they used old footage is potentially answereable with facts, and so constitutes more of a general question than great debate. In fact there is already a GQ thread on the subject. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=87075](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=87075)
---
### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2001, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palestinians-celebrating-cnn-using-old-footage/81568/5 "2001-09-14T19:57:59Z")
Generally speaking, I’m not taking issue with any of the stated facts in the guy’s post, which are as follows:
> [@](#):
>
> In the 60s and 70s they had halped lots of military coups throughout the world (including Brazil in 64).
–and–
> [@](#):
>
> All those mistakes in US external politics made your country more hatred than before
It is a fact that the U.S. helped push through a number of coups during the 1960s and 1970s.
It is also a fact that some of our overseas policies have made us more hated than ever.
Those are the only two facts in his post, and I don’t quibble with them.
It is not a “fact” to state that “your current president quickly made things worse” by implementing certain American foreign policies such as the refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol–it is an “opinion”.
It is not a “fact” to simply reel off a list of American foreign policies, like “Kyoto Protocol” and “Brazil’s National Debt” and “Colombia Plan” and “Israel” and “Northern Ireland”. Yes, they’re “facts”, in that they exist, but that’s all.
I included the quote to show, generally speaking, where he was coming from, namely a strong anti-American bias. He obviously has “issues” with America, and by extension, with the American media, and therefore his charges that CNN faked footage were already suspect.
---
### Author:  [@doggus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doggus)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2001, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palestinians-celebrating-cnn-using-old-footage/81568/6 "2001-09-14T20:06:33Z")
Can this thread please be closed?
It smacks of drawn out moon landing conspiracy threads with hundreds of posts that go nowhere.
Perhaps a GQ?
Just my opinion, O great moderators!