Predicting a Media 'Failure' on Iran?

FYI

Will the mainstream media fail Iran in relaying the realities of the case for war we may soon be presented with?

Given the media's abject failure with regard their performance on Iraq, it is highly likely they will do more to facilitate future carnage than provide readers with the necessary knowledge to object, or if it is their wish, to support military action.

Studies of media performance in the run up to the Iraq war were carried out by:

Cardiff School of Journalism
It concluded the BBC's proportion of news emanating from government sources was twice that of ITN and Channel 4 News.

Media Tenor
The worst case of denying access to anti-war voices was the BBC, which gave just two per cent of its coverage to opposition views - views that represented those of the majority of the British people.

Glasgow Media Group
"They are prisoners of their own assumptions. There is this assumption that western power is being used benevolently for the good of mankind and this colours all reporting. And in turn, I think, the military see western reporters as part of the war effort."

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
"76% of the guests on network talk shows in late January and early February 2003 were current or former US officials, and that anti-war sources accounted for less than one per cent of the guests"


It is only a pity these studies can only be carried out in retrospect.

http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archive/archive?ArchiveId=4691

Sagacity

Well you are replacing one bias with another when you go to Al jazeera aren't you?

The article itself that you are quoting is from 2004, maybe the mainstream have learned since then?

The article seems to be selective with statistics and resources - seriously the network talk shows one between late January and early February, that could be any time span, as little as 5 minutes... I'm sure you could find a 100% anti war statistic in some 5 minute span.

And really the media seems to be bored with Iraq, here and elsewhere, so the only news coming out of the place these days is bad.

And do you seriously think there is going to be an invasion of Iran "soon"?

It seems the neo-conservatives has spent all their political capital and are in over draft mode at the moment, give them 20 years to recover.

FYI

What 'other' bias would that be? Al Jazeera is made up of many ex-BBC journos so I'm guessing you don't suspect their 'journalistic' credentials. As with any 'for profit' news organisation, there is an inherent bias, but Al Jazeera isn't a world away from that of the BBC, in many cases it is almost indistinguishable.

The only reason I used the article was to provide easy reference to the media studies (most of the studies are only available in hard copy, as far as I can tell), I had a feeling it would raise contention among the more sensitive of consumers. There is a world outside of Ireland you know.

There may well be a war in Iran 'soon'. The question is whether the mainstream media's current fascination with alleged Iranian involvement in Iraq is softening public opinion for another invasion?

Sagacity

Well I didn't say which way a bias was, you are using your own conclusions there.

There is a world outside Ireland, but there is also one outside of the US.

So do you mean the US mainstream media? Fox news is hardly mainstream on this continent.

Would this fascination come from their President talking about it? A country's media tends to report on what it's president says. And this reporting seems to be coming from a skeptical press.

I'm sorry I don't see the big conspiracy.

FYI

Sorry, I can't make head nor tail of that.

I didn't say 'which way' the bias went. I simply offered a note on bias in general, and then specifically to Al Jazeera. It seemed the only way to progress the discussion beyond your vague assertion.

I am not referring to the US mainstream media. But I accept that the media often regurgitates the President's statements. The question is whether this is what the media should be doing this, it is a relatively new concept after all.

I would strongly disagree with your assertion that the reporting is coming from a sceptical press. This is not borne out in the reporting. I also see no need to speak of 'conspiracies', this simply devalues the discussion of some very credible studies.

Specifically I would prefer to discuss the Irish mainstream media.

Sagacity

Well I don't really see much coming from the Irish Media about this.

For example here is some google news search results for the past month limited to Irish .ie domains.

iran iraq gives you 41 results.

Contrast this with:

shannon aer lingus has 345 results.

And rugby world cup has 745.

The Irish nation and media has other things on its mind at the moment.

And why would the Irish Media want to soften public opinion for an invasion of one county by another? I assume we won't be involved.

FYI

I think you need to hone your search skills.

Keyword - IRAN (over the last 30 days)

RTE: 20 online articles

Irish Times: 71 articles

Irish Independent: 30 articles

FYI

Sagacity wrote:

And why would the Irish Media want to soften public opinion for an invasion of one county by another? I assume we won't be involved.

Well the first question is not 'why?', but to ask 'is it happening?'; can it be argued and then demostrated to have happened and is continuing to happen. In the case of the Iraq war, the Irish media was not dissimilar to the British media in their performance.

blue4ever

Along with spoken Mandarin – I cant also understand what’s trying to be spun here.

So what if Iran scores 70 (or 700) on a Google search? What’s the big deal – you are clearly coming from the anti war lobby – using terms such as ‘carnage’ to describe a current civil insurrection by on group upon another - and trying set some sort of an agenda here.

And – as an aside – lets take the Googleometre – 70 for Iran, 74 for big brother. What does that conclude – the media digesting public don’t really care. Iran, Iran Who.

Pick a topic thats less 'challenging' - a euphemism for tedious.

FYI

It depends, have you come to the point where ‘news’ and ‘media’ are simply commodities to be sold to the general public. Or does ‘news’ still have some form of social and political purpose? How do you base your knowledge of the world other than on ‘news’, whether that be from media sources or through discussion with other people? Are you happy to reduce media and news to simply gossip, we all indulge in it, but Big Brother is not altering the world we live in as dramatically as events, for example, in the Middle East. The popularity of these issues and the media reporting of them has literally no bearing on the usefulness of discussing them or the way they are relayed in the media.

I use the word ‘carnage’ quite fairly I think given the most recent study into Iraqi mortality found over 650,000 excess deaths. And I would also say I am anti-war, I see no reason to feel ashamed of that fact. I won’t assume to care where you stand.

If you think the topic is tedious you obviously haven’t given it enough thought.

blue4ever

FYI wrote:

It depends, have you come to the point where ‘news’ and ‘media’ are simply commodities to be sold to the general public. Or does ‘news’ still have some form of social and political purpose? How do you base your knowledge of the world other than on ‘news’, whether that be from media sources or through discussion with other people? Are you happy to reduce media and news to simply gossip, we all indulge in it, but Big Brother is not altering the world we live in as dramatically as events, for example, in the Middle East. The popularity of these issues and the media reporting of them has literally no bearing on the usefulness of discussing them or the way they are relayed in the media.

I use the word ‘carnage’ quite fairly I think given the most recent study into Iraqi mortality found over 650,000 excess deaths. And I would also say I am anti-war, I see no reason to feel ashamed of that fact. I won’t assume to care where you stand.

If you think the topic is tedious you obviously haven’t given it enough thought.

I find the topic tedious simply because I think you are spinning - Like a top. And spinning isnt discussing! And what did Bagpus do then........?

FYI

blue4ever wrote:

I find the topic tedious simply because I think you are spinning - Like a top. And spinning isnt discussing! And what did Bagpus do then........?

Do you know what an 'argument' is? or a 'discussion' for that matter? Do you have a definition for 'spinning'? and an explanation for why 'spinning' might negate 'discussion'? Would you prefer to discuss children's TV shows? or imaginary characters? Do you understand the concept of 'debate', or the merits of it? To you usually expend energy in pursuits you find 'tedious', when there appears no reason to? Are you trolling?

For anyone that doesn't find the issue 'tedious', here's RTE's latest on Iran (embedded in a story on Iraq):

"US attack in Baghdad leaves 14 dead
Thursday, 6 September 2007 10:44
At least 14 people have been killed and nine wounded in a US air strike in Baghdad.

The attack in western Mansour district of the capital, a stronghold of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, destroyed several houses.

The US military has launched a series of operations, including air strikes against what it calls rogue elements of the Mr Sadr's Mehdi Army.

It says many of these groups have links to Iran, which it claims is supply weapons and training. Iran denies the charge."

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0906/iraq.html

Should RTE be repeating the as yet unsubstantiated claims of the US military in Iraq without qualification?

maniac101

FYI wrote:

Should RTE be repeating the as yet unsubstantiated claims of the US military in Iraq without qualification?

No it shouldn't - and it doesn't, - at least not in the example you've given. The article appears to qualify everything that the US military has claimed. Qualifications are highlighted:

Thursday, 6 September 2007 10:44
At least 14 people have been killed and nine wounded in a US air strike in Baghdad.

The attack in western Mansour district of the capital, a stronghold of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, destroyed several houses.

The US military has launched a series of operations, including air strikes against what it calls rogue elements of the Mr Sadr's Mehdi Army.

It says many of these groups have links to Iran, which it claims is supply weapons and training. Iran denies the charge."

Perhaps you could find a better example to illustrate your point?

FYI

Thanks for that maniac101, point taken, there are qualifications accompanying all claims.

I didn’t expect such reluctance from others to discuss this topic in the ‘news and media’ forum. Feel free to disagree people, but it’d be better for everyone if you gave an argument why.

From what I gather about this incident, the RTE report leaves out quite a lot of relevant info. For instance, who was killed? Women, gunmen, civilians, soldiers, children? It contains no comments from local Iraqi officials, people living in the area, relatives or eye witnesses. The only context we are given is from the US military, who I am sure we can all agree probably did the actual killing, so you’d presume they’ve got some answering to do; this must raise questions of impartiality and balance?

Looking beyond the actual incident, we then get US claims of Iranian influence, yet this has little bearing on the incident. It is simply regurgitating the official US line. Iranian complicity in Iraqi violence has not been confirmed and is disputed by many more entities than Iran itself, British intelligence for one is not convinced of the complicity. For example David Miliband, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, had this to say to the Financial Times:

FT: What do you think of Iran’s complicity in attacks on British soldiers in Basra?

DM: Well, I think that any evidence of Iranian engagement there is to be deplored. I think that we need regional players to be supporting stability, not fomenting discord, never mind death. And as I said at the beginning, Iran has a complete right, and we support the idea that Iran should be a wealthy and respected part of the future. But it does not have the right to be a force of instability.

FT: Just to be clear, there is evidence?

DM: Well no, I chose my words carefully…

FT: I know, but I’m now asking you.

DM: Well as you know, we are very careful about what we say about these things.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b9b5b078-2d57-11dc-939b-0000779fd2ac.html

In my opinion, offering a British politician as a counter to a US claim would offer the reader a better understanding of the situation. I doubt most people would trust an Iranian denial as much.

But this is pretty irrelevant. Just because the US military make a claim shouldn’t make it newsworthy. If that claim has been supported with convincing evidence then it should be included, but only where relevant. The present push by the US military to blame Iran for formenting violence in Iraq is designed a) to shift focus b) to shift responsibility c) to ‘demonise’ Iran.

The Daily Show had an amusing sketch about qualifiers:

http://digg.com/videos/comedy/The_Daily_Show_Can_you_say_anything_if_you_just_ask

Sagacity

Ah so your problem with the Irish media, is not any conscious bias on their part, but rather their laziness in not providing the full story? It is more the lack of stories and information than too much?

It is hard to see more detailed reports coming from RTE on something like this though. The one you quoted probably took five minutes to write, a proper one would take hours. And I imagine the information is all second hand. So add people on the ground to the hours requirement.

Even with a story like that the major theme coming out of it is more people dead in Iraq. And that is what people will hear.

I still think you are being harsh on them for this specific case. The amount of resources required to provide in depth coverage of this would be too much, and I don't think they would have the audience for it. I suppose, they could get more secondary resources. But the media in general is useless at giving details on any subject unless it is the lead story for weeks.

The "Iran denies the charge" is typical though of how RTE achieves balance. In the run up to the general election, it was getting to the stage where Enda Kenny was replacing the full stop in stories about the Taoiseachs usual daily government business. (I think there is some sort of rule during a campaign).

I think you could broaden your complaint to be any subject, not just Iran or Iraq.

And it is the same across the planet. If you ever watch that Chinese news channel on sky digital, it is like listening to news from a different planet. They don't mention what is in our news and we don't have what is in theirs.

So will the media fail on providing the full story on Iran? Yes the probably will, they do with everything else.

maniac101

It's difficult for the media to provide any impartial reports on Iran in the current environment. Take the example of Amnesty International's shocking report earlier in the summer of child executions in Iran. The report was jumped upon by anti-Iranian groups around the world and the story was abused to reinforce the case for an invasion of Iran. However, media groups that might be considered more impartial avoided the story altogether, perhaps for fear of being accused of attempting to "soften up" the public, as FYI put it. Iran has consistently and cynically abused the human rights of its citizens, with torture of homosexuals and human rights activists becoming commonplace. But how can the media report on this and not be accused by some group or other of being biased? Even on sites like boards.ie, expressing distaste for Iranian Government policies, or highlighting human rights abuses there, is likely to earn you a verbal bashing.

So will the media fail Iran? Well yes, I think it already does.

FYI

Sagacity wrote:

Ah so your problem with the Irish media, is not any conscious bias on their part, but rather their laziness in not providing the full story? It is more the lack of stories and information than too much?

I never mentioned any 'conscious' bias. I don't need to introduce elements of conspiracy or allegation to make this argument. The record is documented and it's freely available for anyone to analyse, which is what the groups mentioned above have done and continue to do. If a bias exists, it exists - you can then consider the reasons why it might exist.

Sagacity wrote:

It is hard to see more detailed reports coming from RTE on something like this though. The one you quoted probably took five minutes to write, a proper one would take hours. And I imagine the information is all second hand. So add people on the ground to the hours requirement.

The RTE article is probably just a copy and paste from the wires. However I have read the first hand wire reports, found easily on the web, and they contain much much more information. RTE appear to have selected only fractions of the complete picture.

"Amid the rubble of one house was a mattress covered in blood with human body parts scattered about. Neighbours said a family of six had been killed in the house, including a 12-year-old girl."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070906/wl_afp/iraqunrest

RTTNews reported: ""The attacks on the houses took place while people were sleeping. There were no clashes. The area had been quiet," said an interior ministry official on conditions of anonymity. "Two to five houses were destroyed. Among the wounded are several women," the official said."

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20070906%5CACQRTT200709060431RTTRADERUSEQUITY_0173.htm &

Sagacity wrote:

I still think you are being harsh on them for this specific case.

I only chose this case because it is fairly innocuous. There are much more blatant examples of similar bias.

Sagacity wrote:

So will the media fail on providing the full story on Iran? Yes the probably will, they do with everything else.

True, but given the media's influence on our lives I think it is worth discussing.

maniac101 wrote:

It's difficult for the media to provide any impartial reports on Iran in the current environment. Take the example of Amnesty International's shocking report earlier in the summer of child executions in Iran. The report was jumped upon by anti-Iranian groups around the world and the story was abused to reinforce the case for an invasion of Iran. However, media groups that might be considered more impartial avoided the story altogether, perhaps for fear of being accused of attempting to "soften up" the public

Yeah that's a good point and a very difficult one to address. I think though that one can take a principled stance against the Iranian governments abuses of power and of their people, and at the same time be anti-war. It is though, obviously much more difficult to lay out a case of media bias on the basis of humanitarian reporting. But I suppose, it's probably best to look at what has gone before to judge the present spotlight.

Prior to the first Gulf war, when Saddam was still an ally of the West there was little mention of the human rights abuses he was commiting. Even the now right wing Christopher Hitchens will attest, Iraq was not on the media agenda. But as soon as he invaded Kuwait (a British creation after all), long after gasing his own people, the focus was now on his evilness. So for human rights groups it was a nightmare, I presume. On the one hand, they had been tirelessly working to highlight these conditions of torture in Iraq in the media - to no avail, and now all of a sudden they were all over the news, but in a horribly ironic sense. Their humanitarian work was now being used by cynical powers to facilitate an invasion, which would go on to cause thousands of deaths and (though they could not have known it at the time) the hundreds of thousands of deaths the sanctions that followed would cause.

I can only assume a similar state of apathy towards crimes in Iran under the Shah was apparent too.

lostexpectation

I don't think you can judge rte reporting just on the little bit on the web or just the tv news you have to listen where the subjects is mentioned on the radio elsewhere during the week aswell.

but I support whats said above its well argued, they should not just quote 'what bush said today' without giving as much time to analysis,they don't have to attack george bush just fact check, its quite easy really.

shouldn't ireland expect rte to give an uniquely irish perspective on these issues , as they our our national broadcaster they shouldn't just repeat the uk us view

FYI

On a related note, given the fact the thread began with discussion of the media's failure on Iraq, here is a recent story which appears not to have broken into the mainstream. You would presume this would be front page headline news...


Poll: Civilian death toll in Iraq may top 1 million

By Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 14, 2007

BAGHDAD -- -- A car bomb blew up in the capital's Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Sadr City on Thursday, killing at least four people, as a new survey suggested that the civilian death toll from the war could be more than 1 million.

The figure from ORB, a British polling agency that has conducted several surveys in Iraq, followed statements this week from the U.S. military defending itself against accusations it was trying to play down Iraqi deaths to make its strategy appear successful.

continued...
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-iraq14sep14,1,1207545.story?coll=la-news-a_section&ctrack=1&cset=true

lostexpectation

and the recent downturn in deaths has being suggested to be result of not the success of the surge but that those threatened with death in their respective areas have just left... and lot of those people are now in syria jordan iran etc some success

see the who interviews with the iranian president on itv and c4, disappointing in that when he's put a direct question he waffled on about his great nation peacefullness friendly relations with its neighbours but resolute, so im guessing the headlines out of that the interviews will be admad denies involvement in bombing basra troops or admad denies nuclear possesing nuclear weapons, based on the questions the journalist ask putting forth US accusations rather then the answer or the truth...

rte should have a biteback type tv programme one for the general tv one for the news, newsnite on the bbc do this partly having more time on their nighlty programmes and the bbc newssite is more interactive the rtes

the news does reply to complaints emails but makes no attempts to acknowledge mistakes or correct itself

FYI

lostexpectation wrote:

the news does reply to complaints emails but makes no attempts to acknowledge mistakes or correct itself

Yep, that's pretty much my experience anyway.

As a token of evidence, there has only been one mention of the ORB poll in the Irish media so far as I can tell:

"The events of late 2002 and early 2003 seem to be recurring like a bad dream; just substitute "Iran" for "Iraq". In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Hans Blix, then head of the IAEA, and the deputy who succeeded him, Mohamed ElBaradei, warned that there was no convincing evidence that Iraq sought weapons of mass destruction. Dr ElBaradei says the same of Iran today. The IAEA was right, but up to 1.2 million Iraqi civilians, according to a survey published by the Los Angeles Times at the weekend, have died for the Bush administration's error."

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2007/0918/1190060014637.html

lostexpectation

are there any irish journalist or papers covering iran, in an original way as opposed to xeroxing jingoistic wire pieces?

RedPlanet

If anybody is interested, you can read about the FAIR report here.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1145
I don't know if that's what FYI is citing, just a story i found on FAIR's archives.
Appears to establish a pro-war media bias.

Manic Moran

I'm not sure that's really the most accurate conclusion to come from the report, however.

If you're going to go citing sources of commentary about the in Iraq up until the date of that report (Over four years ago) you also have to take note of the sources of the information as compared to what is available. Almost all the news is going to start with an announcement by the CENTCOM press office or the DOD mainly because there were no other sources of information. The Iraqi Ministry of Information was likely not entirely up to speed at the time that FAIR report was compiled, neither was there the proliferation of private media in Iraq which there is today. If, in May 2003, there was a report that twenty insurgents had been killed in Ramadi, there would be little choice but to take the Army's word for it, given that reporters weren't in the mood to drive down and ask their own questions for safety concerns. It would make sense that there would be more of a 'pro-Government-policy' sourcing given that the media have to report something, and there are only so many sources to fall on.

It would be interesting to read a similar report by FAIR on a much more recent timeline.

NTM