ABC News has been forced to issue a correction after it was revealed that it was using footage from an American gun range during its coverage of the latest events in Syria, the Daily Caller reports.
The footage, which originally aired on “ABC World News Tonight” on Sunday and then again on “Good Morning America” on Monday, was claimed to be footage of Turkish forces firebombing the Kurds in northern Syria.
The clip, labeled on-screen “Slaughter in Syria” during the broadcast, depicts rapid gunfire and massive explosions taking place at night. ABC anchor Tom Llamas narrated the video by claiming that there were “horrific reports of atrocities” by the Turks against the Kurds, which he claimed were a result of President Trump “effectively abandoning America’s allies” in the region.
But the footage was eventually revealed to have been filmed at a Kentucky gun range called Knob Creek, and first appeared in a YouTube video in 2017. The full footage includes numerous spectators visible at the bottom of the screen, filming with their smart phones; the ABC footage had deliberately cropped out this part of the video to only show the gunfire and explosions.
After a spokesman for the gun range confirmed that the footage was theirs, ABC News issued a correction on Twitter, and announced that they had taken down the video.