Post-mortem on the media's coverage of the Iran IAEA report

So the time has come to do a bit of post-mortem on my blog post about how the New York Times and US media in general totally misrepresented the March 2008 IAEA report on Iran.

First, let me say how disappointed I am that I seem to be the only person who bothered to actually read the IAEA report itself and compare it with the NY Times' coverage. It is a sad state of affairs if I am the one who is relied upon to point out these sorts of things. Most of the other bloggers and "journalists" had simply accepted the media's representations of the IAEA report and were running with it. Bloggers, take heed: Wait for the actual report; don't simply accept the media's claims about it.

Anyway, I posted my criticisms about the IAEA report to Columbia University's Gulf2000 Project email list. Members of this list include most of the top level Mideast specialists and more than a few well-known journalists.

The rules of the Gulf2000 Project prohibit me from disclosing much about the discussion there, suffice it to say that there were two immediate negative reactions. One fellow attacked me personally, but didn't bother actually addressing any of the points I had raised. Another (a better-known journalist and author) sallied forth to "defend journalists" by essentially equating criticism of the NY Times' coverage with "whitewashing Iran's nuclear program". Sad, really. 

However, the most substantive reply was from Jacqueline Shire who didn't address any of my points about the NY Times' coverage of the IAEA report as such, but instead made another point:

"Iran's seeming insistence on adhering to the letter but not the spirit of safeguards ... can create the perception, if not the reality, that it has something to hide. Because this can lead countries to take preemptive action with the disastrous consequences we can all envision, I think it's fair to encourage Iran to be as open as possible in the spirit of avoiding such outcomes."

I can disclose what Jacqueline Shire said on Gulf2000 because it was also printed by Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor (published more than a week after the IAEA report was made public) which also quotes anonymous sources as saying that the initial news articles about the IAEA's report on Iran were "as always, a bit breathless."

It is also too bad that Scott Peterson lets the matter go at that, since the initial reports were not simply "a bit breathless." By any fair reading, the coverage (particularly by the NY Times) was overtly one-sided and deliberately deceptive -- and furthermore, this was part of a pattern of misrepresenting IAEA reports on Iran which goes back to at least the November 2007 report if not earlier. No one has seen fit to ask for any explanations from the NY Times about this. 

(Also, Scott Peterson writes that "But only in April did [Iran] agree to address the "alleged studies." He leaves out the fact that the alleged studies were presented as an issue only in late March.) 

The Christian Science Monitor article also has a link to sound file in which Scott Peterson explains how the media control the spin placed on the IAEA reports by various governments -- totally ignoring the fact that the media (such as the NY Times) obtain the "leaked reports" from the same governments, and are themselves participants in the process of spinning the report. In this case they exploited the time difference between when the report was made available to the media, and when it was posted on the ISIS site for ordinary people like me to read. That time difference allowed the media spin to set the course of the narrative which falsely claimed that the IAEA had condemned Iran, and in fact editorial board of the Christian Science Monitor itself was also busy spinning the report. Like I said, had I not raised the issue, I don't see who would have - certainly not the media.

But back to the discussion on Gulf2000 with Shire: I replied to her that Iran had in fact abided by both the letter as well as the "spirit" of the safeguards requirements, specifically because Iran had regularly allowed inspections that exceed the legal requirements of not only Iran's existing safeguards but also the Additional Protocol too. Furthermore, I pointed out that the "pre-emptive action" (don't you just luv how any US or Israeli act of aggression is automatically labelled as being "pre-emptive"?) contemplated by Shire had no relationship to any "perception that Iran had something to hide" since the Bush administration has made it clear that it intends to selectively deprive Iran (and the developing world in general) of enrichment technology, regardless of whether Iran allows more inspections or not. But, Scott Peterson didn't see fit to mention any of that, which is more the pity.

Anyway, a couple of other members of the Gulf2000 Project specifically asked me if it was OK to use my post, which I was happy to allow. For example, David Isenberg of the Partnership for a Secure America wrote a post which incorporated some of the same points, entitled "Mea Culpa time all over again":

One expects commentary that Iran is a “growing threat” from standard rightwing media such as the Wall Street Journal. More inexplicable are papers like the New York Times.

Exactly!

And Jonathan Steele blogged about the Iran IAEA report in the Comment Is Free section of the Guardian:

Contrary to most western news accounts, it was not unusually harsh. It did not express IAEA frustration or accuse Iran of a willful lack of cooperation. In fact, it said all activities at Iran's fuel-enrichment plants remained under IAEA containment and surveillance.It then outlined a series of areas where Iran needed to provide answers. Many relate to the "alleged studies", a shorthand phrase for material given by US intelligence agencies to the IAEA, which the IAEA is not allowed to pass on to Iran except in broad outline. While claiming the material is forged, the Iranians have begun to provide answers on some points. Although news accounts described Iran's behaviour as "a matter of serious concern", the IAEA used these words for the allegations, not Iran's response to them.

It is too bad that while the "Comment is free" blog section of the Guardian published this item (4 days after the IAEA report came out) the actual website of the Guardian paper itself expressed no such reservations and simply went along with the lie that the IAEA report had somehow condemned Iran (see "UN watchdog accuses Iran of refusing to reveal nuclear aims" by Julian Borger.)

FAIR picked up my blog post as did several other bloggers. Other media watchdog organizations have noted that the New York Times has been promoting Bush administration propaganda on Iran just as it did over Iraq. So, we'll see if one day, the NY Times publishes another grudging admission that its coverage of the Iran nuclear issue was "not as rigorous as it should have been."

Comments

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Cyrus, cessation of enrichment is just a very nice excuse for the Empire and the Zionist colonialists. regardless of what Iran does, the West will never accept it and reconciliation will not be made. Only regime change, that is what the Zionists are salivating for. They know Iran does not and will not have nuclear bomb capability. Journalists know better. But as Carl Bernstein said in his website, most of the journalists of some heavyweight papers like NY Times, are well-paid by the CIA to serve the imperial agenda. Remeber Iraq and the WMD story reported by the prestigious NYT? Iran should never give it up its legal right to enrichment. Otherwise it will remain a slave and will be at the mercy of the West. It reminds me of the oil nationalization movement of the 50s. The British Empire was fiercely against it. Liberty and independence have their prices. Sometimes a nation has to make big sacrifices, but Iran should stand strong with its head up looking to the future. Justice will prevail. Thank you for your hard work on behalf of all the Iranians.