Western Media Aren’t Telling You the Truth About Iran | Hacker News Reader

Western Media Aren’t Telling You the Truth About Iran

wsj.com

I don't think the author's claim is accurate. In truth there is reporting on Iran in (to take just one example) the New York Times which has nothing to do with the nuclear deal and which frequently does cover the struggles of normal Iranians. There is probably less than the author wants, b/c he would like it to be more widely covered. This is understandable. But the situation in Iran is well covered. Indeed I follow it b/c I have an interest in the country and find that the Post and Times do a good job.

Articles not about the nuclear deal appear about once a month or slightly more frequently. What is more likely is that these articles are not that widely read. If this coverage were as widely read as coverage of the NFL, for example, no doubt more US newspapers would have bureaus in Iran.

Examples from the past few months... (This is excluding many articles having to do with the nuclear deal)

- September 28, "‘I Can’t Imagine a Good Future’: Young Iranians Increasingly Want Out" (page A-4)

- September 3, "An Iranian commander who said the West deployed lizards as nuke spies dies from Covid-19" (apparently did not appear in the print edition)

- August 13, "Iran’s Health System ‘Beyond Disastrous’ From Covid Surge" (page A1)

- August 5, "A New President Takes Office in Iran, Solidifying Hard-Line Control" (page A-8)

- July 28, "‘I Am Thirsty!’ Water Shortages Compound Iran’s Problems" (page A-10)

There is separately plenty of reporting about the nuclear deal. Plus Iran is mentioned frequently in articles about Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Saudi arabia, etc, depending on the topic.

if you can’t see the slant from just the headlines you posted, $deity help you. the times is not even close to being a neutral source on iran and most topics.

> the times is not even close to being a neutral source on iran and most topics.

Is the WSJ Opinion section?

Nope. There does not exist any newspaper that is even pretending to be unbiased. All you can do is sample news from a variety of different sources -- I've found foreign news is often the best coverage of US events, and in general to be much more professional. There is the famous line by Ben Rhodes:

"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing."

The quality of US news rooms has really collapsed, as they were hit hard by the internet and especially craigslist, whereas some foreign sources have maintained their staff and have higher professional standards. French news is pretty good, IME. I also follow news in eastern europe.

The "Le Monde Diplomatique" frequently covers otherwise underreported regions of the world, including Iran. That paper also usually has well researched, less agitated articles than one gets used to

I just assume the media is lying about everything as a default position. There is no profession for which I have more contempt than journalism.

I think the problem is that the media no longer has a business model, its been destroyed by the internet.

So now they just put up whatever they think will attract eyeballs for advertisers whilst still appearing superficially topical and "newsy".

Keep in mind that the job of a journalist is distinct from the profession of running and programming a media outlet. In big newspapers journalists don’t even write the headlines that accompany the stories.

I’m also dismayed and disheartened by the quality of most journalism and press coverage we see today. That said I think journalists themselves are least to blame in the equation and have become victims of unsustainable business models.

Fortunately where I live public media thrives and has maintained journalistic integrity in the internet era.

Wow, what shock!

In Germany, there's a phrase "Lügenpresse" translates to "lying media" but to use it labels you as an alt-right twerp and the whole argument is disregarded as such.

There's no real solution other than for people to stop relying on passive absorption of information, and to enforce open transparency in communication networks (ie, Internet) no matter what negative news gets revealed.

But nobody wants that either. Is it better to believe a lie and "trust the system"?

I think most would say yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying_press

"In several speeches by Joseph Goebbels from the first half of 1939, "Lugenpresse" is used to characterize the media abroad, especially the future war opponents of the USA, France and Great Britain. At this point in time the German domestic press was "synchronized" (controlled), a domestic press that the National Socialists referred to as the Lugenpresse no longer existed."

Perhaps learn a bit of history to understand how this word was used and why people think you are a "alt-right twerp" if you use it. The press has some issues. But believing the propaganda of one party or random crap comments on the internet instead of the press is certainly no improvement.

There is no news source without a bias. The only way to learn about the world is to understand the bias, learn from different sources (even sources opposing your own view) and combine this into your own world view.

"I am a blogger and Internet freedom activist in Iran, and I have a message that millions of Iranians are desperate for you to hear: The Western media is failing the Iranian people."

How do you fail those to whom you have no obligation? At most the western media could be said to be failing their intended audience. Although I'm not sure that is the case here either. I have seen coverage of Iranian protests, detaining of the people and general repression in Iran. As much as an Iranian activist would like probably not but I don't know that the level an Iranian activist would like is appropriate for Western media. If you ask China there are 195 countries but I include Taiwan and go with 196. With 196 countries to cover the amount of coverage for an individual country outside the primary reporting area of a newspaper or tv network is going to be limited on a per country basis.

"Reporters would rather tweet about the weather than investigate repression and torture by the regime."

In America, most of the news media is owned by like 4 corporations. No exaggeration.

How is reporting on Iran profitable is the real question.

The weather and the Kardashian type stories are what most people are interested in because it affects them in some way.

Iran's all the way across the sea.

I think this quote refers specifically to one of the Iranian/American journalists who posted just one tweet about snow in Tehran during the nationwide protests in November 2019 (aka "bloody November").

In any case, reports about Iran are a little different from the Kardashian discussion. The goal of reports about Iran is not to gain viewers, but to convey a false (good) image of Iran. At least that's what many Iranians believe. Check out #NYTimesPropaganda on Twitter or this [0].

[0] https://medium.com/@iranfactrecords/open-letter-to-the-new-y...

This group has put so much effort into the open letter, but it's probably not receiving particularly widespread circulation.

Perhaps it would be more effective if this group gathered the detailed knowledge of all the people who signed the letter and published a really detailed book on the current political, social, and economic state of Iran with all the juicy details that they have insider knowledge of included? Surely it would be a richer source of information than the trickle of articles from the single journalist they're upset with.

If it provided deep insights into the nature of the regime, and wasn't just a screed about how the government is awful, this hypothetical book could have a significant political and cultural impact outside of Iran.

Perhaps Iranian media say that western media doesn’t tell the truth about America. Anywhere from the coverage of Ferguson, Baltimore, Occupy Wall Street, to Hunter Biden laptop and the alleged corruption emails. No idea on Iranian media but I have seen media in other western attack-targets countries like RT etc. have coverage like that.

Today on HN there was a post on the massacre of Africans in Paris in 1961 that either had deliberately erroneous coverage or no coverage in western media. (It was flagged).

It seems that conventional media all over the world are the mouthpieces of power centers and elites. They are almost all some form of state media and propaganda even if privately owned.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28895266

The original article that was flagged:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58927939

If you go back to the overthrow of the democratically elected Mossadegh in Iran to take over their oil, all western media synchronously lied about Iran coverage then even going as far as accusing him of being a communist (which he openly was against), and amusingly the communist youth movement was funded by the CIA.

The worst aspects of America are hyper covered globally in fact. Here in the US you can't get away from stories like Ferguson while they're going on, they covered every possible angle about it and all of the coverage was harsh. It was massively covered and exceptionally public, as such things usually are in the US. The whole world immediately knows about it when something like that happens in the US.

The whole world knows whatever America's warts are at a given moment in time. You see it all over HN every single day, in every other thread. If something happens in the US of consequence, hop over to BBC.co.uk and they're guaranteed to be covering it, as will the world's press.

What exactly is hidden?

Occupy Wall Street was in the headlines prominently for two years. It's still frequently being talked about precisely because of that vast coverage: everyone knows about it.

The Biden laptop, well FoxNews & Co. have covered that to death. The right side of politics talked about it endlessly for months. They're still talking about it.

Iran murdered thousands of protestors in 2019 - possibly as bad as Tiananmen Square - and it was only barely covered by the mainstream media. They don't even bother talking about that event now and it certainly won't get the forever coverage that Tiananmen Square has received across decades.

> democratically elected Mossadegh

Mossadegh wasn't democratically elected. That's one of the great lies of recent history. The people of Iran did not elect him. He was installed by a monarchy, the Shah of Iran, and backed by the equivalent of fuedal lords that dominated the Majlis.

"On 28 April 1951, the Shah appointed Mosaddegh as Prime Minister after the Majlis (Parliament of Iran) nominated Mosaddegh by a vote of 79–12."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh#Prime_Minis...

> "On 28 April 1951, the Shah appointed Mosaddegh as Prime Minister after the Majlis (Parliament of Iran) nominated Mosaddegh by a vote of 79–12."

That's essentially the same way the Prime Minister of the UK is selected. Was the Parliament of Iran not elected at that time?

(It is elected now, but candidates must be approved by the Guardian Council, which is appointed by the Supreme Leader, so it's not really democratic now.)

"About Iran" wasn't needed in the title.

The media doesn't tell you the truth. Full stop.

Iran is rarely a topic in western media. The last time they were even close to being relevant was during the nuke deal framework meetings. Otherwise they are not even on the radar of most Americans and a pretty low priority for the government giving a shit at this point

"I have a message that millions of Iranians are desperate for you to hear". That's why I've put it behind a paywall, so you can't read it.

Seems legit.

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