Journalist and author Naomi Wolf insisted in a letter to the news media Monday that she does not believe videos of Islamic State militants beheading American and British hostages were “staged.”
“I am not asserting that the ISIS videos have been staged,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “No one can yet know anything for sure about the ISIS videos as they have simply not been independently analyzed, according to the news outlets which we have contacted for more information about the verification process.”
A number of news sites, including TPM, picked up Wolf’s Facebook posts from over the weekend in which she argued that the beheading videos could not be taken as accurate without independent verification. In one post that was later deleted, Wolf wrote that while the hostages may have truly been abducted, “it takes five people to stage an event like this — two to be ‘parents’ — two to pose for cameras..one in a ninja outfit….and one to contact the media that does not bother checking who ANY Of these other four people are.”
@penkill Here it is, for your reference. pic.twitter.com/H5RxHZEXAp
— Graeme Wood (@gcaw) October 4, 2014
“I certainly sincerely apologize if one of my posts was insensitively worded,” Wolf wrote in Monday’s post. “I have taken that one down. But that does not mean I don’t stand by the need for all journalists to have two independent sources confirming a major story before they release it as confirmed.”
She asked good questions. She made good points. Let’s chill the hysteria.
Two points, sweetie…
You ARE the ‘media’
By showing Exactly What You Said On TAPE, your own words are what hung you by your petard…
You also asserted that the troops being sent over to fight Ebola are going to bring it back to the states in order to take over the country. So excuse us sane folks for once again pointing out how much of a crackpot loon you are.
I would suggest that everyone so consumed with outrage never wear earth tones again in protest.
There are indeed many unanswered questions. She is correct to point out that these hostages appeared out of nowhere – they had not been reported as hostages allegedly under a media blackout.
Why there was a blackout when other hostage-taking is reported is totally unclear, and a decidedly incurious corporate media is more consumed with fanning the flames of support for more slaughter, while dutifully ignoring reporting on the consequences of our own actions. It strikes me that the CIA does a lot of “humanitarian” work as well.
I find these beheadings distinct from the babies-pulled-from-incubators meme only to the extent that these individuals were indeed brutally murdered. Meanwhile, Chelsea Manning rots in prison for showing Americans just one rather sanitized example of the murder we conduct. And our panties are all jammed up our asscrack over this distraction. Please.
In other words, you’re saying – as she is – “maybe they were staged. Who knows?”
I don’t think that constitutes “chilling the hysteria.”