Iran's Propaganda Purveyors
This column was written by Louis Wittig.
Imagine what a wolf in sheep's clothing would actually look like: a six-foot long, 170-pound killing machine prancing on the tips of its paws and choking out a guttural "baa" while the mottled-wool hide slips off its back. The image is a little more farcical than menacing.
On July 2, Iran — which powers past Libya, Syria, and Uzbekistan in Reporters Without Borders' 2006 ranking of most press-repressing governments — launched Press TV, its new fully-subsidized, 24-hour English-language news network, and achieved something of the same effect.
Anchors in Tehran read half-hourly updates on the doings of the "Zionist regime." The channel's Web site (which connects to live streaming video, the easiest way to watch) includes the scoop that the recent "so-called acts of terrorism" in London and Glasgow could have been British tricks to tarnish the image of Muslims.
With production values as sophisticated as its attempt at credibility — panel show guests slouch in their chairs and mumble into underpowered microphones as the ticker below crawls with headlines like "Afghan officials confirm that Germen (sic) abducted" — it's easy to snicker. And easy to be blindsided by the channel's combative claims to be as legitimate as CNN or the BBC.
Yvonne Ridley, host of Press TV panel show The Agenda, legitimizes her employer with the point that it "[gives] a different perspective to the coverage that you get from the mainstream media." Press TV's official mission statement refers to "break[ing] the media stranglehold of western outlets...[and showing] the other side of the story."
Twenty years ago this may have been all well and good. But the next question would be, Is Press TV impartial and objective? Clearly not, Press TV should be dismissed out of hand. Today — after a geometric expansion in news sources, and an interminable culture-war campaign over media bias — objectivity and impartiality are dead standards. Intelligent people no longer really believe in them.
Simultaneously, a host of countries have been launching government-funded, English-language satellite news channels. Al Jazeera International, France 24, Russia Today, and now Press TV are all jostling for the attention of global opinion-makers, all claiming legitimacy because they present a new perspective. Point out that these channels may be unfair in their reportage, and their defenders retort that CNN and Bloomberg and BBC are equally unfair; that their bias is merely a corrective for the other networks' bias.
Thus the quandary of distinguishing which of these channels are harmless BBC-clones and which are government mouthpieces. After all, if "perspective" is the only measure of legitimacy, what's objectively wrong with reporting Ayatollah Khameni's call for Islamic unity as the top story of the day? It is, technically, a statement by a world leader and, thus, from a certain perspective could be considered important.
Still, watch for longer than 15 minutes and a certain "Twilight Zone" ambiance is unshakable. Without any commercials, the channel has the uneasy emptiness of a Potemkin Village. The long spaces between updates are plugged with animations of classic Persian paintings. Two-dimensional ancients pop off gilded backgrounds and zig-zag around. It's seems PBS-ishly intelligent, and then quietly threatening when the camera pulls back and you see that the paintings are of Persians battling foreigners.
Without the foundation of media objectivity, all that can really be said of Press TV is that it's spooky. Being "just another perspective" shields the channel from any judgment of illegitimacy. Here it bears remembering that objectivity isn't the only standard for legitimate news. Thoroughness and topicality are also vital.
On a languorous Wednesday afternoon, Press TV runs an unremarkable report on collapsing Republican support for the Iraq war. Clips of a recent Bush speech are cut with comments from an anti-war activist and four mood-catching man-on-the-street interviews.
Oddly, this segment from Washington is much more comprehensive than any of the station's reporting from Iran. Iran-related nuggets — Iran wants to ease IAEA fears, Iran leaves door open to further U.S. talks on Iraq — crawl across the ticker. Anchors read statements from ayatollahs and generals, mostly on foreign policy. But there's next to no domestic coverage. No average Iranian citizen is ever bothered for their opinion. For a channel with a proclaimed Middle East focus, it's about as thorough as a high school student newspaper.
The same afternoon Press TV ran and re-ran a dispatch from New York on a 50-something Jewish woman who, for a few hours each week in Union Square, protests against Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
Allowing that a protest against Israel could potentially be notable, this one certainly wasn't. The woman's band of protestors counted less than 15 hardy dissidents. And they had been at it for over a decade: by the standards of a globe-spanning satellite news channel, it is an embarrassingly un-newsworthy story.
Setting aside boilerplate wire reports on mudslides in Mexico and forest fires in France, very little of what Press TV broadcasts could be considered actual news — from any perspective. And a news channel that doesn't report news is, well — propaganda? Geopolitical spin? Plaintive editorializing?
For now, the simplest answer to these questions is probably the best: Press TV broadcasts a guy in a collarless shirt telling the story the Iranian government wants us to hear. As the cost of starting a CNN knockoff continues to fall, more groups and governments that crave the sheen of influence such stations provide will start broadcasting. More precise definitions of legitimate and illegitimate news will follow.
Until then, it may help to remember that even when viewers take a news source at face value, the legitimacy of its perspective is dependent on the news it reports. If what it reports isn't actually news, all the perspective in the world doesn't matter.
By Louis Wittig
Weekly Standard Imagine what a wolf in sheep's clothing would actually look like: a six-foot long, 170-pound killing machine prancing on the tips of its paws and choking out a guttural "baa" while the mottled-wool hide slips off its back. The image is a little more farcical than menacing.
On July 2, Iran — which powers past Libya, Syria, and Uzbekistan in Reporters Without Borders' 2006 ranking of most press-repressing governments — launched Press TV, its new fully-subsidized, 24-hour English-language news network, and achieved something of the same effect.
Anchors in Tehran read half-hourly updates on the doings of the "Zionist regime." The channel's Web site (which connects to live streaming video, the easiest way to watch) includes the scoop that the recent "so-called acts of terrorism" in London and Glasgow could have been British tricks to tarnish the image of Muslims.
With production values as sophisticated as its attempt at credibility — panel show guests slouch in their chairs and mumble into underpowered microphones as the ticker below crawls with headlines like "Afghan officials confirm that Germen (sic) abducted" — it's easy to snicker. And easy to be blindsided by the channel's combative claims to be as legitimate as CNN or the BBC.
Yvonne Ridley, host of Press TV panel show The Agenda, legitimizes her employer with the point that it "[gives] a different perspective to the coverage that you get from the mainstream media." Press TV's official mission statement refers to "break[ing] the media stranglehold of western outlets...[and showing] the other side of the story."
Twenty years ago this may have been all well and good. But the next question would be, Is Press TV impartial and objective? Clearly not, Press TV should be dismissed out of hand. Today — after a geometric expansion in news sources, and an interminable culture-war campaign over media bias — objectivity and impartiality are dead standards. Intelligent people no longer really believe in them.
Simultaneously, a host of countries have been launching government-funded, English-language satellite news channels. Al Jazeera International, France 24, Russia Today, and now Press TV are all jostling for the attention of global opinion-makers, all claiming legitimacy because they present a new perspective. Point out that these channels may be unfair in their reportage, and their defenders retort that CNN and Bloomberg and BBC are equally unfair; that their bias is merely a corrective for the other networks' bias.
Thus the quandary of distinguishing which of these channels are harmless BBC-clones and which are government mouthpieces. After all, if "perspective" is the only measure of legitimacy, what's objectively wrong with reporting Ayatollah Khameni's call for Islamic unity as the top story of the day? It is, technically, a statement by a world leader and, thus, from a certain perspective could be considered important.
Still, watch for longer than 15 minutes and a certain "Twilight Zone" ambiance is unshakable. Without any commercials, the channel has the uneasy emptiness of a Potemkin Village. The long spaces between updates are plugged with animations of classic Persian paintings. Two-dimensional ancients pop off gilded backgrounds and zig-zag around. It's seems PBS-ishly intelligent, and then quietly threatening when the camera pulls back and you see that the paintings are of Persians battling foreigners.
Without the foundation of media objectivity, all that can really be said of Press TV is that it's spooky. Being "just another perspective" shields the channel from any judgment of illegitimacy. Here it bears remembering that objectivity isn't the only standard for legitimate news. Thoroughness and topicality are also vital.
On a languorous Wednesday afternoon, Press TV runs an unremarkable report on collapsing Republican support for the Iraq war. Clips of a recent Bush speech are cut with comments from an anti-war activist and four mood-catching man-on-the-street interviews.
Oddly, this segment from Washington is much more comprehensive than any of the station's reporting from Iran. Iran-related nuggets — Iran wants to ease IAEA fears, Iran leaves door open to further U.S. talks on Iraq — crawl across the ticker. Anchors read statements from ayatollahs and generals, mostly on foreign policy. But there's next to no domestic coverage. No average Iranian citizen is ever bothered for their opinion. For a channel with a proclaimed Middle East focus, it's about as thorough as a high school student newspaper.
The same afternoon Press TV ran and re-ran a dispatch from New York on a 50-something Jewish woman who, for a few hours each week in Union Square, protests against Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
Allowing that a protest against Israel could potentially be notable, this one certainly wasn't. The woman's band of protestors counted less than 15 hardy dissidents. And they had been at it for over a decade: by the standards of a globe-spanning satellite news channel, it is an embarrassingly un-newsworthy story.
Setting aside boilerplate wire reports on mudslides in Mexico and forest fires in France, very little of what Press TV broadcasts could be considered actual news — from any perspective. And a news channel that doesn't report news is, well — propaganda? Geopolitical spin? Plaintive editorializing?
For now, the simplest answer to these questions is probably the best: Press TV broadcasts a guy in a collarless shirt telling the story the Iranian government wants us to hear. As the cost of starting a CNN knockoff continues to fall, more groups and governments that crave the sheen of influence such stations provide will start broadcasting. More precise definitions of legitimate and illegitimate news will follow.
Until then, it may help to remember that even when viewers take a news source at face value, the legitimacy of its perspective is dependent on the news it reports. If what it reports isn't actually news, all the perspective in the world doesn't matter.
By Louis Wittig
Too bad you have to wrap up your pro-war, pro-Bush, pro-GOP propaganda in something that at least resembles a coherent argument.
Too bad you don't have the same "freedom" as Iran, eh? It would make your aims and goals that much easier, no?
AND considering the US's ham handed activities in the middle east, let's see first there is the blind support of Israel, then there is the habit of over throwing a govt or invading to over throw a govt, I cannot imagine why the US has such a bad rep??????
At least it is a break from the endless accusations of Iranian support of terrorists.
Could anything be more hilarious then the Weakly Standard complaining of the lack of a "foundation of media objectivity" in Iranian TV?
Who does the poster think supplied Iraq with weapons they used against Iran in their war that we helped create and fund in the 80's. Sometimes I think many of the posters on this forum are about 12 years old or that that have no ememory of what and who led us into the current quagmire.
And if the poster doesn't realize that several billion dollars changes hands under the table between the politicians and arms dealers then it's time to realize that he is indeed not as smart as a 5th grader. Doesn't he remember the Reagan Arms for Hostages deal with Iran? It goes on and on.
I doubt we have anything to fear from English speaking Persian and Arab news networks other than hearing the fears expressed by people who have been under our guns or under our control for the last 200 years - they didn't exactly start this mess in the Mid-East, they has a lot of help from us and the Euros redefining the borders of their nations every 25 years.
Then again....it takes one to know one.
Posted by ainttaken at 09:14 AM : Jul 30, 2007,,,
You are correct! But every nation has some version of their own propaganda machine. What's different in this case is that Iran is taking it's propaganda machine to a new level with an around the clock anti-Western broadcast that is bound to stir the pot and irritate the West. No nation has a dedicated 24 hour a day propaganda machine operating against another!
You know, you could remove "Press TV" and insert NRO and it would be just as true.
Even Eisenhower had problems with Israeli lobby groups but he did not let them buy him!
READ AS THEY BRAG ABOUT THEIR INFLUENCE ON OUR GOVERNMENT!
http://www.aipac.org/forms/join_aipacClubs.htm
Founded in 1953 by Isaiah L. "Si" Kenen, AIPAC's original name was the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs. According to UCLA political science professor and author, Steven Spiegel, "the tension between the Eisenhower administration and Israeli supporters was so acute that there were rumors that the administration would investigate the American Zionist Council. Therefore, an independent lobbying committee was formed, which years later was renamed [AIPAC]." Today, AIPAC has over 100,000 members.[1]
AIPAC's stated purpose is to lobby the Congress of the United States on issues and legislation "to ensure that the U.S.-Israel relationship is strong so that both countries can work together" to meet the challenges of "stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, fighting terrorism and achieving peace".[2] It regularly meets with members of Congress and holds events where it can share its views. AIPAC has been effective in gaining support for Israel among members of Congress and White House administrations.
The New York Times described AIPAC on July 6, 1987 as "a major force in shaping United States policy in the Middle East."
Why would an iranian channel in English be wortless?
Are CNN, BBC and other anglo saxon channels more objective, consistent, intelligent or even honest???
We all know they aren't.
That article has obviously been written by a basic anti-Iranian racist who's statements aren't more intelligent than Bush while he was drunk.
Take care dear reporter, for you might probably be astounded in the coming years by new truths that will shake your seat in CBS... and your pay.