[Koblenz]

bttt

[TheDon]

Fascinating.

[eastforker]

I was also wondering why the press has been so quiet on other issues,makes on wonder doesn't it.BTTT

[spodefly]

I don't get it. It would seem that this would lend some credence to the idea that the masses under the theocratic rules in the ME would welcome and assist in the overthrow of the regimes we have identified as dangerous and that they suffer under everyday. It would potentially lend some support to the idea that there could be a popular uprising in Iraq against Saddahm if we can lend a hand.

We should be trumpeting this news, and doing anything we can to help the people of Iran in taking back their country from the theocracy.

The lack of coverage is mysterious.

[Wright is right!]

"on Monday massive demonstrations were held in the country's major cities, from Tehran to Isfahan, Tabriz, Mashad, and others."

And why was this not reported? Simple. These demonstrations were NOT "anti-American" demonstrations. Had they been, the press would have been all over them.

Michael

[Grampa Dave]

Iran is one of the media darlings of the left wing maggot mediots, who control the media in America.

They set up the overthrow of the Shah of Iran by the Mullah Islamakazis during the Carter years. They made the Shah look terrible and the Mullah Islamakazis as the saviors for Iran.

Then, the media made their Exported Islamakazi Terrorism an impossible thing to counter. For decades we have been brain washed that we can do nothing about the Exported Islamakazi Terrorism. We just have to take it for being the evil Americans we are.

What the Islamakazi Mullahs have done to the people of Iran is thousands of times worse than what the Shaw has done.

If the American Media turned on the Islamakazi Mullahs instead of making them semi heroes, they would fold in months.

This is why I hope that before we take out Iraq, that we take out the Islamakazis Mullahs in Iraq and their fascist Islamakazi brothers in Syria. That should take about 24 hours, and then we can stand back and let the people of Iran and Syria dispose of the remaining Islamakazi despots.

[Constitution Day]

BTTT

[1Old Pro]

Why?

Simple, it's not their kind of "news".

[knighthawk]

Iran ping

[Shermy]

Why?

Coverage of dissent against the Iranian govt. would not confirm anti-Americanism. Therefore it is omitted and deemed unimportant by the media, and the chatty circles they look to for guidance.

The Mullahs have made "Death to America" a centerpiece of their power and ideology. Their religious rites have been transformed into hate sessions against "America" and the West. They call for our destruction, Khomeini called for us to be conquered. But this is ignored by our media. Why? Because the Mullahs are foreign and hate America, therefore they are privileged with legitimacy, and a feeling that they are "right." If they reported the Mullahs' beliefs closely, and the dissent in the country, this would only undermine the anti-American narrative structures they tailor their reporting with. Therefore this information is ignored or omitted.

Sometimes the news is to big to ignore, lest the media loses even more credibility. One solition for the politically correct is to spin some blame on America. Like throw away lines that Iranian reformers are stifled because of what Bush said in such and such speech. Besides salvaging an anti-American angle, this thinking is arrogant, narcissitic, and self-important - denying that the "other" has any nefarious or malicious motives and actions other than those responsive to America or the West, and that "we" control all events that are deemed "negative."

There will be no Iranian coverage. The asperations of the majority of Iranians may be similar to what the media elites feel for themselves and embrace. But this fellow-feeling is less important than maintaining anti-American narratives, or at least hanging on to them. Reportage about the region is around 90% about the identity-feelings of the reporter, not the feelings of the reported. Euro press, around 98% from what I can tell.

[untenured]

Apparently the media of the entire Western world have applied this standard to the dramatic events in Iran, because on Monday massive demonstrations were held in the country's major cities, from Tehran to Isfahan, Tabriz, Mashad, and others. The regime responded with unprecedented violence. There was widespread street fighting. More than 1,000 people were arrested. Several were apparently killed. Even late on Tuesday conflicts were ongoing in Khorassan, and not a single word appeared in a major Western publication, or on the news wires, or on any television broadcast of which I am aware.

Have these events been reported in any other outlets?

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[MeekOneGOP]

Can You Keep a Secret? The media silence on Iran.

Excerpt:

When I first came to Washington I met what I took for a hopelessly cynical man who asked me to define a secret. I stumbled, and he said that a secret was when you called a press conference and nobody reported what you said.

Apparently the media of the entire Western world have applied this standard to the dramatic events in Iran, because on Monday massive demonstrations were held in the country's major cities, from Tehran to Isfahan, Tabriz, Mashad, and others. The regime responded with unprecedented violence. There was widespread street fighting. More than 1,000 people were arrested. Several were apparently killed. Even late on Tuesday conflicts were ongoing in Khorassan, and not a single word appeared in a major Western publication, or on the news wires, or on any television broadcast of which I am aware.

So we have a new historical phenomenon: an invisible, unknown, and therefore secret revolution is under way in Iran.

Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.

[Eala]

Iran is the mother of all terrorism

I thought that was Saudi Arabia; or maybe the House of Saud is just Daddy Financier.

[theophilusscribe]

Here's some more news:

News Hungry Iranians Turn To Internet

TEHRAN, Iran, Aug. 6, 2002  (CBS/AP)

Internet cafes are popular with young Iranians and have spread across a country where the state media is closely controlled by the conservative clerical establishment.

(REUTERS) With dozens of their newspapers banned, Iran's reformists are turning to the Internet as a new arena for their struggle with the Islamic Republic's conservative establishment.

Since President Mohammad Khatami came to office in 1997, Iranian newspapers have been one of the main battlegrounds between his pro-reform allies and their hard-line rivals.

More than 80 publications have been banned in the last two years since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sparked a crackdown by branding liberal newspapers "bases of the enemy." Dozens of pro-reform journalists have been jailed.

But at least five Iranian news-based Web sites have been opened by Khatami supporters in the last 10 days, two of them in place of the recently banned daily newspapers Bonyan and Norouz.

"Technology always wins, and therefore the closure of reformist newspapers is useless when there is the Internet," said a journalist who works for one of the sites.

The newly founded Web sites offer a wealth of news, analysis and opinion as well as "behind-the-scenes" revelations for news-hungry Iranians.

"I used to read Bonyan, when they closed it down I started to read Norouz, again they closed that down, now every day I go to the closest cybercafe and read news on the reformist Web sites," said Ali, a 26-year-old student.

Hard-liners who control state television and radio and a host of newspapers say new sites should be banned.

"These sites pass the limits, spread lies and it seems there is no control on them," one hard-line daily said.

But Internet cafe owners are happy.

"These new sites have improved our business. I believe the number of people coming in to check these sites shows what people really want," an Internet cafe owner in northern Tehran said.

The cafes are popular with young Iranians and have spread across a country where the state media is closely controlled by the conservative clerical establishment. There are some 1,500 Internet cafes in the capital, with more in other major cities.

Iran is a relative latecomer to Internet use, largely due to official fears of Western cultural inroads and information published by exiled political opposition groups.

But the sector has seen a rapid growth in recent years, catching officials off guard. The number of users has shot up and the Internet remains largely unregulated.

"Having a news-based Web site is much easier than opening a newspaper, the Internet is vaguely mentioned in the press law, but opening a site does not require official permission," lawyer Ahmad Akhlaghi said.

"Having a Web site is cheaper and safer. Now reformists are one step ahead of hard-liners," analyst Morad Veysian said.

Many publishers face financial problems because their newspapers were closed down just as they were about to start recouping their initial investments.

"Hard-liners normally closed the reformist dailies on their 100th publication to put more economic pressure on the publisher," said a journalist for one of the Web sites.

"But the sites don't have such problems and most of the jobless journalists now work for them."

THEY SHOULD COME TO FR!!!! :o)

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Most local and national news coverage comes from the news wires...primarily AP. We need to contact journalists in those "hallowed" halls, forget the history and arrogance of AP...they work for us, they have their freedoms because of us, they exist to keep us informed. Customer service and "the people's right to know" mean little to these unelected wielders of the mighty pen. Our press may be the death of us yet.
feedback@ap.org.

[goldstategop]

I think I know the answer to Michael Ledeen's question. Liberals are for revolutions when they're anti-Western and end up establishing "progressive" despotisms. Liberals are against revolutions when they're pro-Western and end up establish a free market democracy. It looks like the latter kind of revolution could well occur in Iran. Which is exactly why the media is maintaining a studied silence and is not cheering the Iranian people on this time. It would lead to a regime all good liberals detest. Y'know one that is a good friend of the United States and President Bush for a change.

[TheOtherOne]

Great post - BTTT

Iran's Khatami concerned over dissident crackdown.

By Parinoosh Arami

08/07/2002

Reuters English News Service

(C) Reuters Limited 2002.

TEHRAN, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Iran's moderate President Mohammad Khatami, speaking after some 30 liberal dissidents received jail terms, has warned hardliners that trying to eliminate opposition groups could send them underground.

Khatami is under siege from powerful conservatives within the state who have blocked his efforts to create a more open Islamic Republic, banned dozens of pro-reform newspapers and prosecuted and jailed a number of his reformist allies.

"No problem will be solved through the superficial elimination of a group with a specific tendency, because it has been proved that tendencies which are suppressed cannot be eliminated," the official Iran newspaper on Wednesday quoted Khatami as saying.

"Such tendencies would go into hiding and grow up at a high cost," he said.

A Revolutionary Court sentenced more than 30 liberal Islamists allied to the Iran Freedom Movement for up to 10 years last month on charges of trying to overthrow the Islamic system.

The court also banned the Freedom Movement, which on Sunday called on the president to help ease the pressure on dissidents.

A group of 150 reformist members of parliament also issued an open letter at the weekend denouncing the hardline crackdown on free speech and the mass imprisonment of dissidents.

"DANGER TO THE NATION"

Khatami pointed out the risks of public dissatisfaction.

"If problems are not solved inside a legal and accepted system, then solutions might be sought outside the system, which is a great danger to the nation," he told an academics' meeting.

Khatami has been criticised for failing to take the lead against the hardline crackdown. Despite a threat in May to resign if he felt reforms had stopped, the president has been largely quiet since then.

U.S. pressure on Iran, which Washington calls part of an "axis of evil", meanwhile has strengthened the hand of conservatives who have called for an end to domestic dissent in the name of national unity.

Conservatives, many of them appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, control the judiciary, the armed forces and most of the security apparatus outside government control.

One of the biggest reform parties said hardliners sought to "prepare the ground for a U.S. attack" on Iran.

"They suppose that a U.S. attack on Iran would be a blessing for them to take advantage of as a pretext to militarise the country and suppress freedom and democracy," newspapers on Wednesday quoted an Islamic Revolutionary Mujahideen Organisation statement as saying.

Khatami said responsible government was the answer.

"Democracy will only be consolidated in the society if the officials who run the branches of government and receive their mandate from people and are accountable to them, can supervise other organisations," Khatami said.

[WaterDragon]

You guys are one of the reasons that the uprisings in Iran are NOT a secret! LOL!

[lambo]

"Why?

I should think the answer is simple: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Or, to deconstruct for you slow-learners out there (not on FR, right?), the anti-American mullahs are our anti-American media's friends.

BTTT