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FAIR
post
January 10, 2012

PBS’s Dishonest Iran Edit

Peter Hart

As if tensions between the United States and Iran weren’t high enough, here’s PBS NewsHour anchor Margaret Warner (1/9/12):

The Iranian government insists that its nuclear activities are for peaceful energy purposes only, an assertion disputed by the U.S. and its allies. On CBS yesterday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta repeated international demands that Iran stop enriching uranium.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LEON PANETTA: But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability, and that’s what concerns us. And our red line to Iran is, do not develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us. They need to know that, if they take that step, that they’re going to get stopped.

The way that’s presented you’d think that the United States has evidence that Iran is pursuing a weapon. Leon Panetta’s soundbite is from his appearance on Face The Nation on Sunday. But the NewsHour removed one key phrase; right before Panetta says, “But we know,” he said this:

Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No.

So Panetta’s statement–that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon–is being used to argue that the United States disputes Iran’s long-standing contention that it not building a nuclear weapon.

Related Posts

  • PBS Responds to FAIR Studies
  • PBS and Iran's 'Nuclear Weapons'
  • PBS Corrects Iran Falsehood
  • Action Alert: PBS Reports Iran Nuke Claims as Facts

Filed under: Leon Panetta, Margaret Warner, NewsHour, PBS

Peter Hart

Peter Hart was the activist director of FAIR for 15 years, as well as the co-host of FAIR's radio show CounterSpin. He is now the senior field communications officer for Food & Water Watch.

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Comments

  1. P. Neisman

    January 10, 2012 at 3:13 pm

    So, here we go again, Weapons of Imaginary Destruction, how lame of the military industrial complex trying to pull another Iraq on America taxpayers -for their own profits. The gig is up.

  2. Ahmad

    January 11, 2012 at 2:14 pm

    You will not be able to prevent Iran from achieving its nuclear ambitions since you allowed the Zionist entity in Palastine to own more than 250 nuclear warheads

  3. Pat Kittle

    January 12, 2012 at 2:05 pm

    The neo-cons have their right-wing Fox News-type excreters (with their pained jocular frat brat attitude).

    PBS is merely one of the neo-cons’ left-wing excreters (with their insufferably pretentious speech affectations).

  4. Jodster

    January 13, 2012 at 6:37 pm

    The “gig is only up” if citizens take action. Get off your computer obsessed butts and take action. At the very least create a petition on the whitehouse website and take action. Democracy depends on an active citizenry. Join your local OCCUPY – they’re everywhere now. Run for government. DO SOMETHING!

  5. Richard Lee Dechert

    January 13, 2012 at 7:16 pm

    PBS didn’t “edit” anything. As FAIR staffers well know, PBS has never produced and has only distributed the current “NewsHour” and its predecessors. They have been exclusively produced for PBS distribution to its affiliate local stations by independently owned and operated MacNeil-Lehrer Productions, Inc. The ending credits for each NewsHour show includes the standard PBS disclaimer which clearly states that “MacNeil-Lehrer Production, Inc. is soley responsible for its content.” For more see http://home.macneil-lehrer.com/about-macneillehrer-productions/>.

    I’m a retired longtime staffer at a major-market PBS affiliate stations. PBS also didn’t “edit” our productions.

  6. TimN

    January 13, 2012 at 7:18 pm

    Good points, Jodster. We need to occupy PBS, before they (and others) goad us into another war.

  7. Richard Lee Dechert

    January 13, 2012 at 7:22 pm

    The above URL didn’t properly translate from my computer sytem to FAIR’s. For more Google the NewsHour.

  8. Boots

    January 13, 2012 at 7:27 pm

    We are now the Untied States of America. Empires last so long and the end comes. Ours is coming soon.

  9. gloriana casey

    January 13, 2012 at 7:35 pm

    Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my! Well, lets see..hmmmm. Oh yes, we had Mr. Hearst, and the Spanish American War. “Remember the Maine!” Plus Mr. Hearst’s ” You supply the pictures and I’ll supply the war.”

    The Lusitania..oh, yes, they DID carry munitions after all.

    The Gulf of Tonkin…oh, nothing really happened, did it. Well, let’s go to war anyway!
    Mr. Bush and those WMDs…NOT!

    Oh, Mr. Panetta..that comment of crossing the “red line in the sand?” Well, that line was crossed TWICE in 1945, but…
    WE were the country that did it!

    Does it really matter if everyone has one, or two or thousands? No. Korea has theirs, and we seem to leave them alone, but Pakistan has some, and we bomb them!

    I have no idea what any of this means, but we cannot afford to have another war, morally, ethically, or economically. I feel like this nation and the military have turned into a giant caterpillar while sitting on a giant mushroom and smoking a hookah at the same time!.

    “One side makes you grow bigger and the other side will make you grow shorter,” said the caterpillar. Wow, maybe , as a nation, we should decline to bite!

  10. Richard Lee Dechert

    January 13, 2012 at 7:40 pm

    TimN, did you review all of or a representative sample of the numerous reports on Iran that the NewsHour and other PBS-distributed shows have produced? If not, where is your credible evidence that “PBS” intends “to goad us into a war”? My name is Richard Lee Dechert, not “Jodster.”

  11. Elaine

    January 13, 2012 at 7:52 pm

    Okay, kind of off-point but what do the following places have in common: Hawaii, Cuba, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Honduras, Iran,(1953) Guatemala, South Vietnam, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq……….the U.S. overthrew them all, frequently for corporate interests. We’re addicted to overthrowing governments.

  12. Elaine

    January 13, 2012 at 8:22 pm

    Also kind of off-point but I was thinking about all the wars and military confrontations in which we’ve been involved in the past 75 years or so. I made a little list (okay, not so little) and I think it’s right. Some of these may be wars that spilled over into other countries but I came up with: WWII,(a war I understood), wars in Korea, Vietnam, the first Iraq war, the second Iraq war, the war in Afghanistan (spilling into Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen), Cambodia, Laos, El Salvador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Libya, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, as well as CIA-backed coups in other countries.
    Then I thought: What an abnormal way for the people in one country to live—one military conflict after another! The abnormal has now become normal!
    Could our self-appointed global police force come home and put our resources into our own badly neglected domestic needs?

  13. tishado

    January 14, 2012 at 12:04 am

    Freedom is slavery… you know the rest.

  14. Scott Sanders

    January 14, 2012 at 4:38 am

    FAIR continues its first rate tracking of corporate media’s abysmal coverage of Iran, including the abysmal coverage available through PBS.

    Here’s an example of public television banging the war drum over Iran in 2007 via “Frontline” – http://www.chicagomediaaction.org//news.php?id=577 Credible evidence? I think so.

    Esp. when you consider this – http://www.zcommunications.org/a-litany-of-lies-and-omissions-by-scott-sanders which contains a section on how the PBS-distributed “Frontline” goaded us into war against the people of Iraq. Remember?

    “Fool me once shame on… shame on you.. fool me… you can’t get fooled again!” DUH!!!

    Understand this too folks: It’s public broadcasting’s club AND YOU’RE NOT IN IT. More here – http://archive.truthout.org/control-public-media-a-social-justice-issue57713

  15. Jerry Markatos

    January 14, 2012 at 7:56 am

    Thanks to Richard Lee Dechert for pointing us to the NewsHour website. Anyone wishing to comment on the lying misrepresentation of Panetta’s clear statement can find a wealth of email addresses at
    http://home.macneil-lehrer.com/contact-us/

    Going to the NewsHour site also reveals that the Washington Post, reportedly attacking Panetta for his partial honesty on the Iran nuclear “threat,” has also provided the NewsHour with its new president and CEO, Bo Jones.

    “Latest News

    “Leading Media Executive Bo Jones to join MacNeil/Lehrer Productions as President and CEO

    ” Long-time Washington Post Executive will head company that produces the PBS Newshour effective January 2012 (October 27, 2011 â┚¬“ Arlington, VA) MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, producers of the PBS NEWSHOUR, is pleased….”

    I wonder what the stock portfolios of these de facto fearmongers and warmongers look like.

  16. Elaine

    January 14, 2012 at 10:39 am

    Well, the military indu$trialis$ complex thank$ them. Maybe that has something to do with their $tock portfolio$.

  17. Mildred Adolphus

    January 14, 2012 at 11:01 am

    PBS, read The News Hour, lost it’s credibility when Powell took over the F.C.C.. Now is the time to watch LinkTV or FreeTV.

  18. jnulv

    January 14, 2012 at 2:36 pm

    Didn’t take long to turn into propaganda central.

  19. Carolyn

    January 14, 2012 at 2:54 pm

    There are at least 2 things we need to do to stop the USA’s continuous state of war all based on misrepresentations & fabrication.
    First we must distribute to everyone the truth. Send the video of Panetta answering the question. We must show the people they are being lied to. And the extent the USA is involved in instigating, funding or actually overthrowing sovereign elected government to impose its economic policy.
    We must take control of Congress forget the president this year but we need to change Congress. Take over the Green Party develop a platform that while has Green objectives in it is a 99% platform starting with Public funding of political campaigns with absolutely no private money allowed. This will allow any civic minded person to run. Than free the news by requiring news & current events be broadcast as a public service in payment for use of the peoples airwaves. Additionally all discussion programs must be continuously labelled “opinion, commentary, not based on fact” throughout the program and announced at beginning & end of commercial breaks. Re-write the Fairness Doctrine to provide political speech as well as the responds from all candidates as a public service. These should be our starter issues which all candidates wanting the support of the 99% must sign the platform promising to enact this legislation without compromise prior to any other Congressional business and this legislation must take effect retroactively to January 2013.
    The only way change will happen is if we Occupy Congress through the democratic electoral process. We don’t have time to create a brand new political party because to be effective we need 50 state ballot access. The Green Party’s philosophy is closer to the views of the 99% than the Libertarian Party

  20. OH

    January 15, 2012 at 8:22 pm

    Obama is worse than Bush if he cant or wont take steps to prevent this disaster. I dont care what good Obama has done, it wont amount to anything, Iran is a bathtub where American Democracy in its present state can easily be drowned to death. Down with Centrists. Iran is the grave of Americas future. Iran does not need to win militarily, we are being dragged into Hell and Obama is still appointing bankers and signing NDAAs and refuses to get in the way of this disaster to protect us.

  21. Larry Victor

    January 16, 2012 at 12:05 pm

    I see Mr. Dechert has decided to do a Pilate and wipe his hands of any responsibility for what his PBS affiliate may broadcast because they are not the producer. Maybe not, but they are the disseminator and share a responsibility for accuracy. Do PBS stations preview their programs for accuracy before broadcasting them? I’ll bet they do. If they don’t they are derelict. I’ll remember that when my PBS affiliate has its next “begathon”.

  22. michael e

    January 16, 2012 at 3:38 pm

    Well this is the easiest thing I have ever seen on the geopolitical stage.Iran can win this argument in one day.They can prove how plumb stupid all those neo con cowboys really are.They can put egg squarely on the face of their detractors.Just tell those nuclear inspectors to come on in for an inspection ,and a cup of tea and world tensions over this will deflate like a pricked helium balloon.Let them go anywhere they would like.To any nuclear plant they want.Then let peace break out.Let the worlds people see Iran as the peaceful nation it really is.They have said they will not develop nuclear weapons.And they they shall prove it.then the world will see it is America who is the outlaw nation.
    Dad used to say that if frogs had wings they wouldn’t bump their asses when they jumped. :)

  23. Marisol

    January 16, 2012 at 5:16 pm

    Agree with OH, Obama is certainly worse than Bush insofar as Obama was always a better dissembler. Only how can you assert there is such thing as American democracy where we have an administration totally subject to that Zionist entity in Palestine and its AIPAC lobby? How can a democracy be called that when it is totally sold out to the interests of the richest neocon war-mongers in the world, a “democracy” in which so many jobs depend so materially on the “success” of finding new theaters for war, ad infinitum on a so finite a planet?? That I think is called genocide, even if American administrations call it “a quest for security” . Security against what? Against nous-mêmes? The United States are always looking for a place to fight. As Michael e says: the United States are indeed THE outlaw, rogue nation. And Zionists are the other side of the coin. At any rate, how can one nuclear weapon compare to 250 nuclear war heads?

  24. Brent

    January 16, 2012 at 11:43 pm

    “Just tell those nuclear inspectors to come on in for an inspection”

    Do you mean the way that the weapon inspectors prevented the invasion of Iraq? No evidence of WMDs. That’s just because they hid them real good. Try disproving any accusation when that’s the default setting.

  25. michael e

    January 17, 2012 at 2:10 pm

    Brent they were kicked out of Iraq.Remember Saddam admitted he wanted to keep the world guessing.Bad play there old chap.
    Marisol says……I never said America was a outlaw rogue nation except in complete sarcasm.Point of order I disagree with every word you wrote.

  26. Larry Norman

    January 17, 2012 at 3:25 pm

    There are only five nuclear armed nations who have signed the U.N.’s nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Each signed the agreement after it had already acquired a full measure of nuclear weapons. Coincidentally, each was also a member of the U.N. Security Council: the U.S., the UK, France, Russia and China.

    There are four additional countries that have managed to develop nuclear weapons illegitimately, i.e., outside of the auspices of the U.N. treaty. These are: North Korea, Pakistan, India and Israel. Each refuses until now to sign the agreement. Three of these also reside in a very troubled and problematic region and are in close proximity to Iran.

    Unique from the others, Iran, which has no nuclear weapons, has signed the NPT. It has also demonstrated uncommon good-faith–particularly when compared to the others–in cooperating with U.N. enforcement as it attempts to advance its nuclear program.

    For the U.N. to now countenance the draconian sanctions contemplated by the U.S., the U.K. and Israel against Iran, would not only be super-hypocritical, it would also be dangerous and unforgivable, particularly if war turns out to be the result.

  27. Richard Lee Dechert

    January 18, 2012 at 12:56 am

    Larry Victor above says:

    January 16th, 2012 at 12:05 pm
    I see Mr. Dechert has decided to do a Pilate and wipe his hands of any responsibility for what his PBS affiliate may broadcast because they are not the producer. Maybe not, but they are the disseminator and share a responsibility for accuracy. Do PBS stations preview their programs for accuracy before broadcasting them? I’ll bet they do. If they don’t they are derelict. I’ll remember that when my PBS affiliate has its next “begathon”.

    Mr. Victor,

    Before they’re released to the public, my station has the same responsibility to review its own productions for accuracy, fairness and other criteria as FAIR does. They should both be held accountable when they fail to do that.

    As for others’ productions my station elects to air, if they’re broadcast live the station obviously can’t pre-screen them. If they’re fed to my station before it airs them, they’re pre-screened within the limits of the station’s resources. It operates three 24/7 program channels plus a website that transmit over 500 hours of programming a week. Viewer complaints or comments about all programs are welcomed and shared with key station staffers. Thousands are received each year. Viewers who have complaints or comments about others’ programs are advised to also contact them. A very large majority of the viewers has been satisfied with that system.

  28. michael e

    January 18, 2012 at 7:17 am

    Larry
    I think you are dreaming in your assessments on Iran.You place them in a very good light.It is not a light shared by most intelligence communities.Certainly not our own.Now if your opinion is well “they really skrewed the pooch in Iraq”so lets disregard them, or disband them ok I understand your anger.But our intel shows they are driving a full court press to develop a bomb.Match that with their open threats to nuke israel and close off our oil and bring on the 12th Imam and we got a live one partner.I think you are one of those rational good people who believe others are like you and really only want peace.Hitler would of ate you for lunch.There are bad people out there.Im surprised that you have so little faith in your own country.Even with Obama at it’s head.

  29. john

    January 19, 2012 at 10:54 am

    @ michael e: Our intel shows nothing of the sort.

  30. michael e

    January 19, 2012 at 6:14 pm

    John don’t bet the house on it

  31. john

    January 22, 2012 at 3:51 am

    @michael e: What’s freely asserted is freely denied. Cite a source, Jack Ryan.

  32. Luis Cayetano

    January 27, 2012 at 7:16 am

    ‘But our intel shows they are driving a full court press to develop a bomb. Match that with their open threats to nuke israel and close off our oil and bring on the 12th Imam and we got a live one partner.’

    The bold-faced lies and fabrications come thick and fast with you, don’t they?

  33. Ronald Reed

    February 7, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    michael e: Brent they [the inspectors] were kicked out of Iraq.

    Sorry, but that’s one of the great enduring lies of our time. The Washington Post, which has spent the first years of this century as a vehicle for the neo-cons’ war propaganda and therefore cannot be accused of coddling Saddam Hussein, reported in one of those one-day wonders back in January 1999 (the ninth, iirc) that Clinton had ordered the inspectors withdrawn; the press had exposed some of them as CIA agents in disguise as inspectors, who were apparently taking notes on appropriate targets for the upcoming bombing, and Saddam refused to cooperate further, at which point Clinton ordered them out. Given your unbelievable level of ignorance about the Mideast and our policies there, indicating a blind acceptance of whatever the presstitute media [thanks to Paul Craig Roberts for the succinct construction) chooses to pipeline to you, I’m not surprised you also have no knowledge of the background of the U.S. – Iraqi relations of the last couple of decades.

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