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Mainstream Media in America and Britain Repeat the Same Mistakes in Covering Iran That They Made on Iraq

By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett | Going to Tehran | May 13, 2013

In an excellent report released last month, the University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM) offered a thoroughly documented—and devastating—critique of mainstream media coverage of the Iranian nuclear issue.  Authored by Jonas Siegel and Saranaz Barforoush, Media Coverage of Iran’s Nuclear Program:  An Analysis of U.S. and U.K. Coverage, 2009-2012, see here, reviews coverage of Iran’s nuclear activities and the international controversy surrounding those activities in six major English-language newspapers:  the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, the Guardian, and the Independent.

To quote from the report’s executive summary (with emphasis added), the authors found that

“–Newspaper coverage focused on the ‘he said/she said’ aspects of the policy debate, without adequately explaining the fundamental issues that should have been informing assessments—such as Iran’s nuclear capabilities and intentions, the influence of U.S., European, Iranian, and Israeli security strategies, and the impact of the nuclear nonproliferation regime.

–When newspaper coverage did address Iranian nuclear intentions and capabilities, it did so in a manner that lacked precision, was inconsistent over time, and failed to provide adequate sourcing and context for claims.  This led to an inaccurate picture of the choices facing policy makers.

–Government officials, particularly U.S. government officials, were the most frequently quoted or relied-on sources in coverage of Iran’s nuclear program.  This tendency focused attention on a narrow set of policy options and deemphasized other potential approaches to the dispute.

–Newspaper coverage generally adopted the tendency of U.S., European, and Israeli officials to place on Iran the burden to resolve the dispute over its nuclear program, failing to acknowledge the roles of these other countries in the dispute…

–Coverage of Iran’s nuclear program reflected and reinforced the negative sentiments about Iran that are broadly shared by U.S., European, and Israeli publics.  This contributed to misunderstandings about the interests involved and narrowed the range of acceptable outcomes.

In general, these characteristics led newspapers to frame their coverage of Iran’s nuclear program in a manner that emphasized official narratives of the dispute and a relatively narrow range of policy choices available to officials.  By not consistently describing the complex web of international relationships, security concerns, and intervening political factors in sufficient detail, newspaper coverage further privileged official narratives and policy preferences.  This makes it likely that the policies enacted and under consideration by policy makers—coercive diplomacy and war—remain the most likely outcome of the dispute.  In this way, news coverage of Iran’s nuclear program is reminiscent of news coverage of the run-up to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.  News coverage has the potential to play a significant, constructive role in finding a lasting resolution to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, but journalists and editors first need to address the tendencies present in their current coverage of the topic.”

We encourage all to read and ponder, hard, this important new report.

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May 14, 2013 - Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Financial Times, Guardian, Iran, Mainstream Media, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post