By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich, Finian Cunningham
January 13, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" -
The 19-second video published by the New
York Times last week showing the moment an Iranian
missile hit a passenger jet has prompted much social
media skepticism.
Questions arise about the
improbable timing and circumstances of recording the
precise moment when the plane was hit.
The newspaper ran the splash story on January 9,
the day after a Ukrainian airliner was brought down
near Tehran. It was
headlined: ‘Video Shows Ukrainian Plane Being
Hit Over Iran’. All 176 people onboard were killed.
Two days later, the Iranian military admitted that
one of its air defense units had fired at the plane
in the mistaken belief that it was an incoming enemy
cruise missile.
“A smoking gun” was how NY Times’ journalist
Christiaan Triebert described the video in a
tweet. Triebert
works in the visual investigations team at
the paper. In the same tweet, he thanked – “a
very big shout out” – to an Iranian national by
the name of Nariman Gharib “who provided it [the
video] to the NY Times, and the videographer,
who would like to remain anonymous”.
The anonymous videographer is the person who
caught the 19-second clip which shows a missile
striking Flight PS752 shortly after take-off from
Tehran’s Imam Khomenei airport at around 6.15 am.
This person, who remains silent during the filming
while smoking a cigarette (the smoke briefly wafts
over the screen), is standing in the suburb of
Parand looking northwest. His location was verified
by the NY Times using satellite data. The rapid way
the newspaper’s technical resources were marshaled
raises a curious question about how a seemingly
random video submission was afforded such
punctilious attention.
