Happy Little Birds in Happy Little Iraq
Reported by Janie - April 14, 2006
Last night (4/13) as I was watching "Special Report with Brit Hume", I was a bit startled by how Hume attempted to portray Iraq as tranquil and serene, even claiming that most provinces are secure and calm (so calm that 65,000 people have had to flee their homes). Yet, what startled me even more was what was happening in the background of the desperately upbeat Iraq story.
On the surface, the video seems average for Fox - footage of an Iraqi province that seems safe, children wandering the streets, women riding bicycles and men just "hanging out", but what caught my attention was the apparent onslaught of birds in this quaint province. If you listen closely to the video, you will notice that in each and every outdoor shot, despite the cuts between images, despite the lack of other sounds, there are birds chirping. The only outdoor scene of the province that does have any other sort of sound - does not have the chirping birds.
Did Fox add a soundtrack to make Iraq appear more serene than it is, or is this Iraqi province straight out of Hitchcock's "The Birds"? As they say at Fox, "We report - you decide!"
