Reporters' nightmare

摘要

Six months into Syria's uprising in 2011, a television station close to the regime claimed that Al Jazeera, the Qatari satellite channel, had built model Syrian towns and squares to stage fake protests. Syria itself, the programme insisted, was calm. But intrepid journalists smuggled into the country by helpful young opponents of the regime, themselves armed with cameras and satellite kits to upload footage, soon confirmed that this was rubbish. They graphically showed President Bashar Assad's forces cracking down brutally on a popular revolt.