CNN is acknowledging {that a} gripping story it aired final week depicting a Syrian man being let free from a Damascus jail after the fall of dictator Bashar Assad’s regime was not what it appeared.
The community mentioned that it has since discovered that the person proven in correspondent Clarissa Ward’s report, which initially aired on Dec. 11, apparently gave a false identification.
“This second captures the complexity of the scenario in Syria,” CNN’s Jake Tapper mentioned on Tuesday.
Within the report, Ward was being escorted by a Syrian insurgent by means of a jail that had been run by the Syrian Air Power intelligence providers and emptied for the reason that Assad authorities fell. That is what they thought, at the very least — till they came across a padlocked door.
The insurgent guard shot the lock to open the door to a cell, the place they discovered a person hiding beneath a blanket. Clearly bewildered and shaking, he gulped water when supplied, mentioned “oh, God, there may be gentle!” when led outside and hugged the guard when instructed of the change in energy.
He instructed Ward that his identify was Adel Ghurbal from the Syrian metropolis of Homs, and that he was a civilian who had been arrested three months in the past and frolicked in three totally different prisons.
However a couple of days later, a Syrian fact-checking site, Confirm-Sy, mentioned that the person was actually Salama Mohammad Salama, and that he was a former intelligence officer for the Assad authorities. CNN obtained a photograph of Salama and, by means of facial recognition software program, discovered that it was a greater than 99 % likelihood that was the identical man from their report, the community mentioned.
Ward mentioned Tuesday that CNN did not know why he had been arrested. Confirm-Sy reported that Salama, who had a status for extortion, had been thrown in jail due to a dispute with a superior officer over sharing a number of the income, she mentioned. CNN has been unable to verify that or find Salama, she mentioned.
A CNN spokeswoman mentioned that nobody outdoors of the community knew forward of time of the plans to go to the jail. CNN reported the scene because it unfolded, the community mentioned.
It was arresting video, and the temptation to air Ward’s story was apparent. Whereas CNN did due diligence and analysis in uncovering the issue after the actual fact, the query is whether or not the community might have, or ought to have, performed extra to confirm the prisoner’s story earlier than it was used.
“I believe we must be humble in regards to the challenges,” Ward mentioned on the air Tuesday. “It’s a chaotic ambiance, there’s a large quantity of flux, and it is rather troublesome to confirm info in actual time on the bottom … Tales take surprising turns. We’ve got to proceed to report them with out concern or favor, however it’s immensely difficult on this surroundings and I believe we must be clear about that.”
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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Comply with him at and
