An Emirati press release, two treatments: the cautious copy and the "holy war"

The same judicial press release is relayed almost word for word by the French press, then stripped of its caveats and escalated into a prophecy of perpetual war by Fox News.

The starting point: one press release, and nothing else

On 9 October, the Emirati Attorney General, Hamad Saif Al Shamsi, published a statement about the Omani co-pilot of the Flydubai Dubai-Tel Aviv flight, diverted on 30 September to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia [4]. According to this text, the investigation « a révélé » (revealed) that the man « avait commencé à mettre en œuvre un projet terroriste prémédité » (had begun carrying out a premeditated terrorist plan) targeting Ben Gurion’s passenger terminal « dans le but de causer le plus grand nombre possible de victimes » (with the aim of causing as many victims as possible) [4]. The same statement notes that the accused « a affirmé avoir agi seul, sans l’implication d’autres personnes » (said he acted alone, without the involvement of other people) and that the prosecution continues its work « afin de vérifier cette affirmation » (to verify this claim) [1][3][4]. Everything in this corpus comes from there, plus one American interview.

The French press: the press release as copy ready to publish

France 24, franceinfo and RFI published the same day, from the same source, structurally identical dispatches. All three reproduce word for word the same key sentences: « Il remplissait les conditions professionnelles et de sécurité requises à l’embauche » (He met the professional and security requirements for hiring) and « Aucune de ces procédures n’a révélé d’indices laissant supposer ses opinions extrémistes » (None of these procedures revealed any indication suggesting his extremist views) [1][3][4]. Attribution is correct: « a affirmé » (stated), « selon le procureur » (according to the prosecutor), « a indiqué » (said). What is missing lies elsewhere.

First gap: no one notes that the authority certifying that the hiring procedures of a Dubai-based company revealed nothing is the Emirati Attorney General [1][3][4]. The point is not to suspect the statement. It is to observe that the question of who certifies it, and of his institutional interest in making the procedures look flawless, is raised nowhere.

Second gap: the journalistic work itself. RFI enriches the statement with details (the emergency axe, the two reconnaissance flights to Tel Aviv « afin de se familiariser avec le plan de vol et l’aéroport » (in order to familiarize himself with the flight plan and the airport), the intervention of the return flight’s captain) [4]. franceinfo adds a glossary on « l’idéologie takfiri » (takfiri ideology) [3], and France 24 sticks to the skeleton [1]. But everything comes from the same text: none of the three dispatches contains an element that is not in the statement.

Third detail, revealing: the headlines are already drifting. France 24 announces that « le copilote dit avoir planifié un attentat-suicide » (the co-pilot says he planned a suicide attack) [1], turning into a confession what RFI presents as an investigative finding (« l’enquête… a révélé » (the investigation… revealed)) [4]. Same statement, three different attributions: the relay machine produces its own variations without anyone checking them.

France 24 accompanies its dispatch with two links: « “Super-héros du ciel” : qui est Smit Machchhar, ce pilote qui a évité le pire sur le vol Flydubai ? » (‘Superhero of the sky’: who is Smit Machchhar, the pilot who averted the worst on the Flydubai flight?) and « “Je ne pouvais pas les laisser mourir”, raconte le pilote à Modi » (‘I could not let them die,’ the pilot tells Modi) [1]. franceinfo links to passenger testimony, including this one: « “J’ai pris les commandes et tiré, j’avais vu ça dans une série” » (‘I took the controls and fired, I had seen that in a series’) [3]. In Huxley’s register, the setup is complete: the foiled attack is immediately paired with its merchandise, the hero, the series, and the testimony lived as fiction. The reader consumes the threat and its entertainment in one gesture.

Fox News: the press release stripped of its caveats

On Fox, the factual base fits in one paragraph: “United Arab Emirates investigators have described the incident aboard FlyDubai flight FZ1073 as an attempted terror attack after the co-pilot allegedly stabbed the captain” [2]. The rest of the article is one man’s word: Bryan Stern, “chairman and CEO of Grey Bull Rescue”, an organization that “conducts evacuations from war zones and hostage situations” [2]. Fox presents him as “a U.S. rescue expert and 9/11 first responder” [2]. Nothing in the piece establishes expertise in counterterrorism, and Fox does not ask the question. The headline sets the frame in advance: the United States and its allies would be playing “checkers” against enemies who play chess [2]. The incident is not recounted; it is mobilized as proof of a prior thesis.

Along the way, the press release’s caveats disappeared. The « afin de vérifier cette affirmation » (to verify this claim) [1][3][4] does not exist in the Fox article. More curiously, its own factual paragraph cites “Australian authorities” whose counterterrorism unit would be investigating the co-pilot’s “links to Australia” [2]. That would be in tension with the lone-actor thesis, and the article does not notice. Since this detail appears in no French dispatch in this corpus, it rests on a single source and must be treated as such.

Then the escalation, printed as information. The standfirst promises that “an attack that dwarfs 9/11 could hit America” [2]. The guest continues: “I promise you there will come a time… we’re gonna say, ‘Wow, that wasn’t so bad, only 3,000 died’” [2]. An unverifiable prediction, made by an organizer of evacuations, becomes the horizon of the coverage.

Perpetual war as a genre

On the Orwell side, the mechanism is clear. “They have been in holy war against us,” the guest declares; “We have now engaged in a holy war against them” [2]. War no longer has an object or an end: the enemy is “extremely sophisticated” and “completely emboldened,” and has “got the whole world to hate Israel, the whole world to hate us” [2]. Dehumanization follows in cascade: “an angry, radicalized, Sunni bad guy” [2], “radical jihadi weirdos and whack jobs” [2], Taliban “who don’t know what plumbing is” [2]. The Two Minutes’ Hate, in long format and without the minutes.

And newspeak by passive adoption: Fox writes the War Department [2], with no scare quotes or note, reproducing as is the name chosen by the Trump administration for the Pentagon. The outlet does not comment on this political choice of language; it absorbs it. This is exactly the mechanism this site tracks: the unexamined repetition of state vocabulary.

What the reader would need instead

The full statement, most completely quoted by RFI [4], with its explicit caveats: the claim of isolation is unverified, and the prosecution « continue d’enquêter sur l’implication éventuelle de complices ou d’autres liens » (continues to investigate the possible involvement of accomplices or other links) [4].
The question of the certifier: who certifies what, on behalf of which state, and with what institutional interest in the result.
A clear hierarchy between established fact, the accused’s claim, and a commentator’s speculation. “I promise you there will come a time” [2] is none of the three.
Flagging of single-source elements: “most of them Israelis” [2] and the Australian investigation [2] appear in none of the three French dispatches in this corpus.
A clean treatment of the verifiable decisions Fox mentions in passing: Netanyahu’s order to review security procedures for foreign civil aviation flying to Israel, and JD Vance’s announcement of a review of flight procedures in the United States [2].

The press release becomes copy, the copy becomes prophecy. Between the two, no one in this corpus has asked the only question that matters: what do we actually know, and who certifies it?