‘Oscar-worthy act’: CNN’s Clarissa Ward under fire over ‘staged journalism’ in Syria

By Press TV Website Staff

In a June 2021 interview with CBS News, CNN’s chief international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, openly expressed her fascination with the Syrian “revolution” and her admiration for anti-government “rebels.”

“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,” she admitted to host Michael Morell, advocating for more aggressive “regime change” measures beyond the imposition of crippling sanctions.

Last week, following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Damascus in a well-orchestrated plot by the United States and the Israeli regime, in collaboration with some regional states, Ward appeared elated as she reported for CNN from the Syrian capital.

In fact, CNN was the first Western media to interview Mohammed Al-Jolani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a militant group backed by the US and Israel.

Previously the leader of al-Qaeda and Daesh in Syria and Iraq, Jolani has a bounty of $10 million on his head placed by the United States under Donald Trump in 2018.

There is already talk of Washington removing the bounty and taking off HTS from the "terror" list.

Ward is following the same line. Her activism has blurred the line between journalism and propaganda, evolving into blatant advocacy for militant groups that had seized control of Damascus.

CNN’s chief international correspondent grabbed headlines when she claimed to have discovered a Syrian “prisoner” wrapped in a cloak in a locked cell looking hale and hearty.

“In nearly twenty years as a journalist, this was one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed,” she wrote on her X page on Thursday, exuding pride and excitement.

The story was later exposed as a staged act by Ward, with many ridiculing her and suggesting she deserved an Oscar for her “superlative performance.”

CNN shared the story on its official X page (formerly Twitter) with the caption: “Syria is free.”

“Extraordinary moment as @clarissaward and her team witness a Syrian prisoner freed from a secret prison in Damascus. Left alone for days without food, water or light, the man was unaware Bashar al-Assad's regime had fallen,” read the post, which was shared nearly 10,000 times.

Beneath the post, 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, debunking the narrative peddled by Ward.

Patrick Henningsen, a geopolitical analyst and journalist, like many others, criticized Ward and CNN for being “standard bearers of fake news.”

“Thanks to their latest exploits in Syria, the public now knows that @ClarissaWard and #CNN are the standard bearers of #FakeNews,” he wrote.

A social media user, ‘Truth Teller,’ observed that the “prisoner” Ward purportedly found in an empty cell appeared far too groomed and healthy for someone deprived of food and water for days.

“Notice his manicured nails. The cell looks fairly clean too. Funny how that works while the rest of the country has been bombed over 400 times since last week,” the user remarked.

Max Blumenthal, the Grayzone editor, said Ward has spent “over a decade propagandizing for the Syrian counter-revolution,” aligning herself with the “anti-regime” campaign in Syria.

“She once hired a top foreign Al Qaeda propagandist as a fixer. Here she is in 2012 w/ NATO-backed ‘rebels.’ Something tells me she won’t stay around when it gets extremely ugly,” he commented.

A social media user quipped that Ward’s acting abilities would be better suited to Hollywood.

“Clarissa Ward needs to go to Hollywood. First, she faked being bombarded by Hamas rockets during a report, and now she discovers a well-groomed Syrian man who had apparently spent three months in a prison already thoroughly searched by Syrians,” he wrote.

“Scenes from CNN news starring propagandist/journalist B-lister actress Clarissa Ward,” another user added.

“Sniffing a bag for chemical weapons. Faking an attack on the Israeli-Gaza border. Freeing the last prisoner—a very healthy, clean-cut Syrian man—from Sednaya prison.”

This is not the first instance of Ward’s staged journalism. She has enacted similar acts in the past, including during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the Israeli regime’s bombardment of Gaza.

As a community note under the CNN story attested, Ward has "a history of fake clips along with misinformation" from Syria to Gaza to Afghanistan and many other countries.

She staged rocket attacks by the Hamas resistance movement, pretending to take cover, a performance that was widely criticized and debunked by fact-checkers at the time.

A CNN spokesperson acknowledged that the audio was “inaccurate and irresponsibly distorts the reality.” However, the network has yet to issue a statement regarding her recent act in Syria.

“Clarissa Ward is a great performative journalist. She was there performing for the camera in Gaza, presenting the compassionate face of CNN and Western media to the world, for nearly one whole evening. Now she is here playacting for the cameras once again,” commented an X user, Deepak Vaid.

“This reminds me of when Clarissa was lying on the side of a highway (with traffic passing by) as CNN dramatized Hamas rocket attacks in the immediate aftermath of the Oct 7 uprising. Clarissa Ward is definitely winning the Oscar this year,” echoed another user, Riz Kenobi, dubbing it an “Oscar-worthy” act.

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