KALTBLUT-HONK! 03 The Divas

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already being analyzed and spread on Twitter. So did
Twitter replace mainstream media as the best source
of news about Bin Laden’s death? Yes and no.
Yes, many people first heard about the news on Twitter,
but more often than not the original source of
that news could be traced back to mainstream media.
Although some “accidental” on-the-ground-reporting
occurred exclusively on Twitter, mainstream media
(CNN, NYT, etc) confirmed Bin Laden’s death.
Twitter does not supplant other media—it merely
amplifies it. According to TechCrunch, during the
President’s announcement, people were Tweeting at a
rate of over 4,000 Tweets per second, a close second
or third—about the same level of Tweets as during the
last Super Bowl. Much of what people were Tweeting
was what they were hearing on TV, thus passing
the news instantly to people who may not have been
in front of a TV at the time. But what that means in
practice is that if you are following the right people,
you don’t have to actually turn on your TV.
Osama or Obama?
Shortly after US president Barack Obama officially
announced the assassination of Osama Bin Laden,
mainstream media became somewhat confused as
to whether Osama or Obama had been killed. Understandably,
the distinction between the world’s
most-wanted terrorist and the President of the
United States of America is so subtle as to be nearly
baffling. Frankly, I don’t judge them. Back in 2006
during the London bombings I was live reporting for
DARIK radio on the events and I kept on confusing
9/11 with 11/9 and 9/6. Anyway, everybody had a
good laugh over CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, El Pais
and FNC, which unwillingly put a bullet in Barack
Obama. And yet, the confusion is not completely
unjustified—bin Laden, just like Tupac, continues to
drop new tapes after his death. The next one is to be
released very soon. Maybe by the time this article is
published it will have made its way through the Al-
Qaeda media pipeline.
Conspiracy photo booth
All those speculations lead us to the next conspiracy
layer. Apparently there has been a post mortem
photo shoot with Osama (as himself) Some outtakes
are yet to be released by the Obama administration,
although already in the night of Bin Laden’s
assassination, news agency Reuters offered media
all over the world what was supposed to be Osama’s
death mugshot. A trusted source in Eurovision -
not the song contest, but the premier distributor
of news content for the world’s top broadcast and
media platforms - gave me some inside on coverage
on the story. Here is the timeline: Someone hears
about Osama Bin Laden’s death, performs a Google
Image search; finds a year-old doctored image of
dead Osama and sends it to PK TV; they pick it up
and use it for their news coverage as a source; PK
TV then forwards the image to RTV and APTN;
the image then lands all over the world, including
Reuters. Hour later Reuters calls back to withdraw
the picture explaining it was - wait for it - fake. Still,
the only people with supposed to be real images
of dead Osama, remain the officials in the White
House. I hope they will spread an image which is not
completely blurry and shaky and also one that won’t
cause another wave of Moon landing conspiracy.
July 4.2
Although, when you take a step back and look what
was and is still happening all over the US after
Osama Bin Laden’s death, you can clearly see that
the general public doesn’t really care if the US government
will get their Osama story straight or not.
Bin Laden’s assassination released a wave of spontaneous,
organized and unnecessary celebratory
events. Accompanying the Osama/Obama confusion
in media was the live streaming of joyful celebrations
in Washington and at Ground Zero in New
York. I really wonder if people at Ground Zero were
realizing at the moment they were dancing on the
grave of almost 3000 people. Anyway, the ridiculous
patriotic outburst wasn’t a surprise altogether, but
the way it happened made me wonder if the news
had a commercial brake and this was the summer
campaign for Coca Cola.
To be honest, the whole outcome of events was a
little sad that people think of the death of Osama
Bin Laden as of victory. If May 1st was supposed to
celebrate a victory of the United States over terrorism,
it is beyond doubt that this victory is Pyrrhic
except for those making money off of it. There was
a moment where I dreamed of being a American
flag manufacturer, or owner of a company producing
full-body suits with the American flag on them
or toilet paper with Bin Laden’s face printed on it.
Maybe it’s not too late tho - this story is a developing
just like the creative ways of producing hideous
patriotic merchandize.