Syria Support Movement solidarity with the Syrian people
from the News Desk at the Cradle, December 17,2024
CNN has acknowledged that a report filed by star journalist Clarissa Ward from Syria claiming to show her discovering a prisoner in a Damascus jail was false.
The description of the video report stated that “Clarissa Ward discovers a man in a cell in a Damascus jail who claimed to be an ordinary citizen imprisoned by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.”
As Ward, her cameraman, and a militant from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered the cell, a man lying under a blanket suddenly stood up and acted surprised to see them. He further claimed that he had been detained in the cell for three months and that he was not aware that the government of Bashar al-Assad had fallen.
However, observers online quickly observed the report was not accurate and had been staged for dramatic effect by Ward and CNN.
After CNN posted a link to the video report on X, which remains undeleted, a community note flagged the act as “clearly staged.”
“There is no chance a prisoner who was in the darkness can look with wide eyes at the sun. Additionally, his jacket is clean, and he has a new haircut and clean nails, which is not a possible case for Syria’s prisons,” the note explained.
Drop journalism and adopt acting @clarissaward, it suits you. pic.twitter.com/atRqsola70
— Suppressed News. (@SuppressedNws) December 16, 2024
Further, the prison had been opened, and the prisoners were released days before as HTS fighters took control of Damascus on 8 December.
CNN later retracted the report, claiming Ward and her team had been misled by the man.
CNN explained the error by claiming that Syrians from Homs had identified the man as Salama Mohammad Salama, a lieutenant in the former Syrian government’s Air Force Intelligence Directorate.
“Facial recognition software provided a match of more than 99 percent with the man CNN met in the Damascus prison cell. The photograph shows him sitting at a desk, apparently in military clothing,” CNN wrote.
However, CNN refused to provide evidence that the photo exists, saying, “CNN is not publishing the photo to protect the source’s anonymity.”
Syrian fact-checking organization Verify-sy cites locals as saying that Salama managed different security checkpoints across Homs and was involved in “theft, extortion and coercing residents into becoming informants.” According to these sources, he had been recently detained due to his involvement in extortion.
After the fall of the government last week, many Syrians have gone to prisons and hospitals to search for loved ones detained or disappeared during the war, which began in 2011.
In March of that year, Al-Qaeda militants, including from HTS’s predecessor group, the Nusra Front, launched an insurgency to topple the government with help from foreign intelligence agencies.
Syrian intelligence detained many Syrians during the course of the war, some on suspicion of supporting the insurgency and others for no apparent reason. Many have never been seen again.
Clarissa Ward has a history of staging reports in Gaza and Syria.
CNN’s Clarissa Ward is a fake news queen and a class A sociopath
— Luke Rudkowski (@Lukewearechange) December 13, 2024
Ward has also acknowledged that her past reporting in Syria has not been truthful.
In a June 2021 interview with CBS News, Ward, CNN’s chief international correspondent, acknowledged the bias in her reporting.
“Yeah, I mean, you know, I will cop to the fact that I think I crossed the line in Syria. I became so emotionally involved, and I was crushed by the US response and the US policy,” Ward stated while advocating for regime change and brutal economic sanctions that have punished Syrian civilians.
