Home > Archives for International > Mideast > Iran
Nov
29
2012

AP's Iran Bomb Drawing Hoax

By 33 Comments
ap-iran

Crack open USA Today (11/28/12) and you saw this headline: Diagram Suggests Iran Working on Bomb The story was short–short enough for a careful reader to see that it in no way lived up to that alarmist headline. But the piece still tried really hard to frighten people. Here's the lead:  Iranian scientists have run computer simulations for a nuclear weapon that would produce more than triple the explosive force of the World War II bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, according to a diagram obtained by the Associated Press. The diagram was leaked by officials from a country critical of Iran's atomic program [...]

Filed Under: AP, Iran, Israel/Palestine, USA Today Tagged With: ,
Nov
02
2012

PBS Corrects Iran Falsehood

By 20 Comments
pbs-iran

A FAIR Action Alert (10/24/12) criticized the PBS NewsHour for reporting that "Iran's nuclear weapons program has been a particular flash point" in the presidential race. As we noted, there is no hard evidence that Iran has such a weapons program; in fact, international inspections have consistently found no evidence that Iran has diverted uranium for military purposes. Soon after FAIR activists began writing to the show, the NewsHour responded by posting  an Editor's Note: EDITOR'S NOTE: This transcript has been updated to account for an error in the NewsHour's broadcast reference to Iran's widely suspected military ambitions in pursuing nuclear [...]

Filed Under: Iran, Media Activism, PBS Tagged With:
Oct
26
2012

FAIR TV: Killer Drones Stop Terrorism, PBS Gets Iran Wrong, New Obama Ad Is…Racist?

By 4 Comments

On the new episode of FAIR TV: Is a new Obama ad…racist? We'll take a look at how PBS is misreporting Iran, and also take a look at Joe Klein's remarkable defense of killing four-year-old girls in other countries. Take a look–and please spread the word.  

Filed Under: Barack Obama, Iran, MSNBC, PBS, Time, Washington Post Tagged With: , ,
Oct
24
2012

Action Alert: PBS Reports Iran Nuke Claims as Facts

By 26 Comments

A new FAIR action alert takes the PBS NewsHour to task for reporting claims about Iran having a nuclear weapons program as if they were facts. If you write a letter to to the NewsHour, please consider posting it in the comments section below.

Filed Under: Iran, Media Activism, Media Criticism, PBS Tagged With:
Oct
10
2012

ABC's Very Efficient Anti-Chavez Propaganda

By 17 Comments
abc-chavez

If you're listening to a report on an Official Enemy like Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, you expect to hear a litany of misdeeds, real or imagined, about the leader in question. Just check out ABC World News (10/7/12), where anchor David Muir started out with this: And a fierce enemy of the United States, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, faces the toughest election of his life tonight. It's hard to know what Chavez has done to earn that label, but moments later Muir put this question to correspondent Jorge Ramos: MUIR: We all know that President Chavez has almost made it [...]

Filed Under: ABC, Iran, Venezuela Tagged With: , ,
Oct
09
2012

What Are Enemies For?: Iran Sham Helps PBS Smear Chavez

By 24 Comments
chavez-iran

It's no secret that U.S. media outlets don't have much love for left-wing Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.  A PBS NewsHour segment (10/5/12) just ahead of the recent election  showed just how far you could go. Correspondent Ray Suarez opened by calling the election "a watershed moment for the world's second-largest oil-producing nation and a critical supplier of crude oil to the U.S"–I guess we know what makes Venezuela important to the United States. Chavez has "openly antagonizing the United States as he's cozied up to the world's most isolated regimes." And Suarez has an example: He's continued to thwart American efforts [...]

Filed Under: Iran, PBS, Venezuela Tagged With: , ,
Sep
28
2012

NYT and Professor Netanyahu

By 19 Comments
clip_image001

At his United Nations address yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held up a cartoonish drawing of a bomb, an odd way to illustrate the supposed existential threat posed by Iran's nuclear program. People quickly posted parody versions of the bomb. But not everyone joined in the fun. Take a look at the New York Times (9/28/12), where Rick Gladstone and David Sanger wrote this: With an almost professorial air, Mr. Netanyahu held up a diagram of a bomb with a fuse to show the Israeli view of Iran's progress in achieving the ability to make a nuclear weapon. He drew a [...]

Filed Under: Iran, Israel/Palestine, Mideast, New York Times Tagged With: , ,
Sep
27
2012

Don't Tell O'Reilly, but His Iran Blockade Idea Already Worked

By 17 Comments

Crooks & Liars (9/26/12) notes Bill O'Reilly is proposing a naval blockade of Iraq: Says O'Reilly: We're going to block it, nothing in, nothing out. OK? That's what we're going to do. And if you challenge the blockade, we'll do what we have to do like the Cuban missile crisis, same thing–not gonna do it, not gonna let your nukes in Cuba. Kennedy did that. Not gonna let your nukes in Iran. BANG! That's what we're gonna do. So you've either got to stop now and not force us to do it, because if you force us to do it, [...]

Filed Under: Fox News, Iran, Iraq, Media Criticism, War/Military Tagged With: , ,
Sep
14
2012

NYT Buries the Lead on Iran

By 30 Comments

Part of being a journalist–the most important part, perhaps–is deciding which information is most relevant to readers. So take a look at today's New York Times piece (9/14/12) on Iran's nuclear program.  The focus is on Israeli threats and where it says it is drawing its "red line" for military action. But this focus is distorting one of the most important facts about the conflict. Mark Landler and Helene Cooper explain that Israeli leaders are unhappy with the White House position: Israeli officials, however, say this guarantee may not be enough for Israel, which Iranian leaders have repeatedly threatened with [...]

Filed Under: Iran, Media Criticism, New York Times, Nuclear power
Sep
10
2012

Iran Coverage Offers Confusion Over Clarity

By 28 Comments
romney-gregory

On NBC's Meet the Press (9/9/12), Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and host David Gregory had a discussion about the failures of the Obama administration's foreign policy that included this:   ROMNEY: The president has not drawn us further away from a nuclear Iran. And in fact Iran is closer to having a weapon, closer to having nuclear capability, than when he took office.  This is the greatest failure, in my opinion, of his foreign policy.  He ran for office saying he was going to meet with Ahmadinejad.  He was going to meet with Castro, Kim Jong Il.  All the [...]

Filed Under: Iran, Mitt Romney, NBC, New York Times Tagged With: ,
Sep
07
2012

FAIR TV: Iran Misreporting, Labor Day and CNN's Unbelievable Romney

By 20 Comments

The new episode of FAIR TV is here, featuring misreporting on Iran's nuclear energy program, NewsHour lecturing labor leaders on Labor Day, and some of the most embarrassing biographical puffery for a presidential candidate you're likely to ever hear. Please share it with your friends, and let us know what you think in comments below.

Filed Under: CNN, Europe, Iran, Labor, Mitt Romney, PBS Tagged With:
Aug
31
2012

Burying the Most Important News on Iran's Nuclear Program?

By 33 Comments

The release of a new International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran was greeted as an ominous development by some major outlets. But are they playing down what could be the most important news in the report? The IAEA's latest made it to the New York Times (8/30/12) under the headline, "Inspectors Confirm New Work by Iran at Secure Nuclear Site." Reporters David Sanger and William Broad write: Iran has installed three-quarters of the nuclear centrifuges it needs to complete a site deep underground for the production of nuclear fuel, international inspectors reported Thursday, a finding that led the White [...]

Filed Under: Iran, Israel/Palestine, New York Times, Washington Post Tagged With: , ,
Aug
20
2012

The Faulty Assumption Behind Bad Reporting on Iran

By 17 Comments

The Washington Post (8/17/12) has a story on Iran and the threat of war that begins with this: Preparations in Israel for a possible war are focusing new attention on whether Israel will attack Iran's nuclear facilities and forcing an unwelcome debate in the thick of a presidential campaign about the U.S. role in stopping an Iranian bomb. The article, by Anne Gearan and Karin Brulliard, repeats the same assumption a number of times–Iran is after a nuclear weapon: Some say that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is bluffing in hopes of forcing President Obama to issue an ultimatum to [...]

Filed Under: Iran, Israel/Palestine, Washington Post Tagged With: , ,
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