How The Guardian Changes History

Oliphant and Walker spot a Russian convoy at the ‘dead of night’? Photo: Shaun Walker

Having read an article by Eric Draitser entitled There Goes The Guardian Lying About Ukraine…Again! on the alternative website counterpunch, I emailed Eric, pointing him towards my own evidence regarding The Guardian’s recurring problem with facts regarding the war in Ukraine. This is particularly important, considering the confrontation threatens to drag Europe into a war that could erupt into a nuclear exchange. The paper’s cavalier attitude towards manipulating the truth on such serious issues is nothing less than frightening.

Shaun Walker’s articles on Russia and the Ukraine in The Guardian often draw accusations of heavy bias against Russia in the comments section. Not without reason. The photo above was presented as showing part of an illegal incursion into Ukraine by a Russian armoured convoy last August. Shaun Walker is credited as having taken it. Roland Oliphant of The Telegraph claimed Walker and he had come across the convoy driving through a hole in the fence at the ‘dead of night’. Even if the photo is genuine it gives lie to the story. The armoured vehicles are driving on a good tarmac road. By the rear tail lights of the vehicle in front and the sky we can deduce it is dusk or dawn. It certainly is not the ‘dead of night’. We can also suppose the two men are sitting in, or on, the vehicle behind. One thing is clear, they are nowhere near a hole or a fence. And they can’t possibly have been concealed, as their account hints towards. The troops manning the convoy would have to be blind not to be aware of the two journalists right in their midst.

The original story – now in The Guardian archives – has been tampered with. The photo has been moved from an article written by Walker in November 2014 to an article published in August 2014. We might ask why. From his article, we can assume Eric Draitser saw Walker’s original, and not the revised version.

In the days of Soviet Russia, the western press often featured articles on the way Russian newspapers altered photographs and printed propaganda and lies. It seems the West is now resorting to similar tactics. If we can’t trust our media to be responsible, it follows we can’t trust our governments either, as they often feed it, especially in times of conflict. Therein lies the road to totalitarianism.

If anyone knows of a screenshot of the original articles, I would appreciate them getting in contact through my comments section. Your name and details will not be published without consent.

I publish the text of my email to Eric Draitser, along with the relevant links, here:

Hi Eric,

Having read your latest article in counterpunch, I thought you might be interested to read my own little piece of armchair research into Bellingcat, published on my blog last September 10th, where I did a bit of digging into its funding: MH17 – Brazen censorship by The Independent.

As for Shaun Walker, The Guardian archives appear to have been tampered with since you last looked. In There Goes The Guardian Lying About Ukraine…Again! you mention a Guardian article Russian military vehicles crossing the border into Ukraine by Shaun Walker published on August 15th 2014 where he claims to have witnessed a Russian armoured convoy crossing the border into Ukraine.

You say: “There is only the word of The Guardian’s reporter Shaun Walker, who conveniently could not get a photograph or video of the alleged military vehicles crossing into Ukraine.”  As you correctly point out, the original article did not contain a photo of the convoy Walker claims to have seen. Yet, magically now it does. And Shaun Walker is given the credit for having snapped it. There is something a little disturbing about that, as to judge from the photo he would’ve had to have been driving one of the armoured vehicles in the convoy, or riding in it. Yet according to Roland Oliphant of The Telegraph, he and Walker had spotted a Russian armoured convoy driving through a hole in the fence, which separates Russia from Ukraine, at the dead of night.

I know very well the original didn’t include the photo because I happen to have posted an article dealing with that very point on my blog. Shaun ‘wish I’d brought my camera’ Walker was published on August 17th 2014, the date can be verified from wordpress site records. Not only has the Walker article been tampered with but so has the headline. Now posted as Aid convoy stops short of border as Russian military vehicles enter Ukraine (the link is exactly the same as it is in my original article) it does contain a photo of a convoy, credited to Shaun Walker. Yet that photo did not appear in a Guardian article until November 12th 2014, when it accompanied a different article by Shaun Walker under the headline *Russian tanks and troops crossing into Ukraine, says Nato commander. The photo of the convoy Walker claims to have witnessed, and was previously in that article, has been replaced by a video.

By removing the photo from the November 12th article to insert it into the August 15th article The Guardian brazenly attempts to give the August article credibilty it didn’t formerly possess, as Walker didn’t produce one shred of evidence to back his claim at the time. I know the photo wasn’t there because I wrote another article about it called Shaun Walker is caught invading Ukraine by his own camera, which I posted on November 13th 2014. 

This manipulation of the article by the placing of a photo which was not there previously is an exercise in deception. It demonstrates that The Guardian is content to alter evidence on extremely serious matters that threaten world peace and security.

Bryan Hemming

*The plot deepens. Though the link for this article is the same one I published in Shaun Walker is caught invading Ukraine by his own camera! I discovered the article has either been subsituted by one by Ewan MacAskill, or Shaun Walker’s name has been omitted as joint author.