Murtaza Hussain on Iran Deal Sabotage, Chip Gibbons on Agricultural Censorship
How should reporters cover White House maneuvers to depict Iran’s compliance as non-compliance, and make clear what’s at stake?
Soundbites September 2017
Making the Case for an ‘Affluent Left’ by Ignoring Evidence…
Democrats Are Back! And by ‘Back,’ We Mean ‘Screwed’…
Four Years Later, a Baseless Iran Smear Is (Sort of) Retracted…
USA Today’s Korea Sources Have Something to Sell You…
You Don’t Have to Work for Bezos to Boost Amazon
How Media Spread CIA’s Sectarian, Anti-Iran ‘Mideast Cold War’ Narrative
A new Vox video is the latest addition to a media onslaught that propagates numerous misleading talking points to demonize Iran—just as the US government, under Donald Trump’s vehemently anti-Iran administration, is ratcheting up aggression against that country.
After 1,379 Days, NYT Corrects Bogus Claim Iran ‘Sponsored’ 9/11
The New York Times maintained for more than three years that the government of Iran “sponsored” the September 11, 2001, attacks. The belated correction, issued late Wednesday night on two widely spaced articles on the topic, unceremoniously noted that Iran did not, in fact, help commit the 9/11 attacks.
Soundbites April 2017
With Help Like This, Who Needs Hurt?… When US Kills Civilians, It Does So for Democracy… NPR’s Expert Is SPLC’s Extremist… It’s Not About a Flag… WaPo’s Conflict of Interest Live… Vox Licks the Hand That Feeds
On Iran, SPLC’s ‘Extremist’ Is NPR’s ‘Expert’
NPR’s report on Iran turned for analysis to what the SPLC describes as “a conspiracy-oriented mouthpiece for the growing anti-Muslim movement in the United States.”
CIA’s Work With Filmmakers Puts All Media Workers at Risk
The CIA assisting or posing as filmmakers, journalists and other creative roles—a practice the Agency reserves the right to partake in to this day—puts actual filmmakers, journalists and other creators at risk overseas.
WaPo Gets Iran Missile Story Exactly Backwards
The point of Tehran’s current missile tests is to develop weapons that are militarily effective with conventional payloads.
The New Yorker Doesn’t Factcheck What ‘Everyone Knows’ Is True
Reporting on the Argentine investigation of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish Center treats Iran’s responsibility as an accepted and documented fact.
PolitiFact Is Right That Ted Cruz Is Wrong, But Still Botches Iran Deal Facts
It wasn’t too difficult for PolitiFact to judge Ted Cruz’s claims about the Iran deal to be false. But PolitiFact’s own understanding of the parameters of the Iran deal itself was surprisingly rife with errors.
‘This Deal Affirms the Peaceful Nature of the Iranian Nuclear Program’
“We constantly hear, in nearly every single article that is written about this deal and its potential consequences, that Iran is a bad actor in the region and that it has nefarious activities.”
Iran’s ‘Nuclear Ambitions’ Go Unquestioned in Coverage of Iran Deal Momentum
Corporate media coverage of Democratic support for the Iran deal is leaving out at least one crucial detail: the lack of evidence that Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb.
Nima Shirazi on Iran Deal, Mark Trahant on Native Americans
The debate over the Iran deal has featured a wealth of misinformation about Iran and the pact itself. Plus: If indigenous people are, as the New York Times said, an “important political constituency,” why do we see so little news about them?
Inspecting Media’s Claim That Iran Should Trust Inspectors
CBS’s discussion would have been more satisfying if someone had acknowledged the reality that it would be foolish for Iran to accept unlimited inspections at any location on its territory, because the United States has in the past used inspections as a cover for espionage that facilitated military attacks.
Media and Nuclear Deal Opponents Continue to Spread Debunked Myth Iran Will Monitor Itself
A now-debunked story by Associated Press reported that Iran would be inspecting itself. The piece, in its first draft, was full of errors and distortions. But its supposed revelations filled the airwaves.
ACTION ALERT: NYT Says ‘Pro-Israel Community’ Opposes Iran Deal—Ignoring Actual Opinions
The New York Times’ description of a “pro-Israel community intensely opposed to the [Iran] deal” is contradicted by polls of Jewish- American opinion.
Giving War a Chance
The specter of war in American foreign policy discourse has produced a troubling framework: Advocates of diplomacy with Iran cite war as the inevitable alternative, while critics of diplomacy cite war as its inevitable outcome.
US Politicians’ Racist Anti-Iranian Remarks Don’t Make Headlines
War-hawk politicians have no problem wielding racism and bigotry when it is in their political interest. And because they are not held responsible for their extreme rhetoric, they have every incentive to keep employing it.
‘Swiftboating’ J Street to Smear Iran Deal as ‘Anti-Israel’
J Street has backed the Obama administration’s diplomacy with Iran and is backing the Iran nuclear deal, and that’s why opponents of the Iran nuclear deal are attacking J Street and saying that J Street’s claim to be “pro-Israel” is dubious.
Side-By-Side Coverage of Cuba and Iran Highlights Shift in US Media Villain-Making
While Cuban officials are granted airtime as they forcefully denounce American policies at a walking distance from the US Capitol building, similarly reasonable positions on the part of Iran are treated as outrageous demands.
