Anniversaries
Anyone who listens to NPR, or reads the popular print media can not avoid knowing that this is the 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution that toppled the Shah, and brought the conservative mullahs to power. But another important anniversary comes up this year, and I haven’t noticed much attention to it.
For the past week NPR has has regular features with reporters in Iran talking to people about life there since the revolution, how the Islamic revolution in Iran has shaped the world, and how people see their participation in the revolution with three decades of perspective. While they are not always sympathetic to the current government, the NPR journalists have been quite respectful, and have avoided discussion of hot button items like religious intolerance, the punishments for adultery and sodomy (stoning and hanging), or other issues which might make it difficult to maintain NPR’s presence in Iran. On the whole, though, my impression is that the journalists seem to be fairly positive about Iran and its government.
Twenty years ago the Berlin Wall came down, and the old Iron Curtain collapsed, along with communism in much of eastern Europe. As Captain Ed Morrissy notes on Hot Air, the last person to be shot and killed by the East German guards at the Berlin Wall was on February 8, 1989. While the collapse of communism might be argued to be at least as large an event as anything since the end of World War II, I don’t expect the MSM to give it much play. Too many of them are still cheering for Fidel Castro and Che, while overlooking the body count in all these revolutions.
Much like the situation in Iran, the media elite cheers for one thing, but seldom do these elites vote with their feet and move to these nations. Nor do they ask the obvious question: If life is so good in (check whichever applies – Cuba, East Germany, Iran, Vietnam) why do all the streams of people seem to be leaving, rather than entering these nations? Yet there it is. The East Germans built the wall, and installed a border fenced and protected with mines and machine guns to keep its own citizens IN, not to keep the decadent westerners out. People brave the ocean in flimsy home made rafts because they want to leave Cuba. Despite all the talk, I don’t see too many US academics quitting their cushy tenured positions at Old State U, let alone an Ivy league school like Harvard, and flocking to take jobs in Cuba or Iran. Why is that? and does that have anything to do with the different coverage of the different events?
I suspect we all can make a decent educated guess at the answer. The intellectual elites, be they media or academics, like their little pleasures. They don’t want to have to give these up to live in a place where civic virtue is a rigorously protected as Cuba or Iran. And that is probably why NPR won’t be doing much to point out how much better off most of the former East Germans are now that their nation has been re-unified. It would be admitting that they have been living a lie.
OB Please supply some links were the MSM cheers for Che and Castro.
I think Rudi is asking the right question.
But more importantly, the reason NPR (which is not the MSM by any means) is covering the Iranian revolution rather than German reunification is quite simple. The Middle East, and Iran in particular, are big newsmakers. When’s the last time anyone in the US really cared about what was happening in Germany?
So you endorse the bandwagon effect in the media, Chris?
And while Rudi’s point is valid, I assumed that OB was using a bit of hyperbole in saying that the MSM is cheerleader to Che and Castro.
“News and analysis from different moderate perspectives”. This is a very encouraging and exciting tag for a political blog. This post, however, uses every propaganda trick in the book from establishing straw men to questioning the patriotism of people with different views. Here’s a tip for you: using the phrase “media elite” tells your audience they are about to hear right-wing jingoism. It does not seem that you are aware of that.
I don’t see how you could think that I was.
I’m merely pointing out that NPR’s coverage of the Iranian Revolution can be explained by something more logical than a secret love affair with Cuban or Iranian revolutionaries.
Chris, as C Stanley said (and you seemd to have ignored) is the point about hyperbole.
OK, Chris, I should have worded that more as a question. Thanks for the response and I agree (although ideological biases might have some part in it as well, on the part of the editorial staff and the viewer/readers who create the demand for certain types of stories but not others.)
Jay,
The author seems to believe what he wrote. Orson Buggeigh can certainly chime in and clarify.
At first read, I thought you were suggesting that journalists be biased against Iran. Which would be bad, of course, since bias against something is still bias.
On the second read, it sounds more like you’re asking why they’re not asking the tough questions about religious tolerance, punishment for adultery and sodomy, etc.
If my second read take is the right one then fair point.
ddqarch: I use the terms “liberal,” “far left,” “far-left loons” in my posts quite often, and sometimes in quite a derisive manner. Am I also a right-wing jingoist? I also use “conservative,” “far-right” and “far-right loons” too. I must also be a left-wing kool-aid drinker.
I don’t agree with some of the terminology used on blogs. I wasn’t too big a fan of the last president, but I also didn’t join the those on the left who called him names like Shrub or Dubya, or other, less family friendly words. Nor will I join those on the right in calling Obama “The Messiah.”
C. Stanley and Michael Merritt picked up on the points I was trying to make in this post. and yes, a bit of hyperbole is in play, though sometimes it is hard to be too over the top when talking about academic enthusiasm for revolutionaries.
The media is not asking tough questions about Iran as it now exists, or why the apparent promise of the Iranian revolution has not been fulfilled. I suspect some of this is due to the concern about alienating potential sources. Despite the anger about the Bush administration’s suppression of reporter’s rights in the wake of September 11, 2001, people here have no problems compared to reporters in Iran. Unpopular questions simply don’t get answered. People too pushy about western ideas are not too welcome. While one can make a case for this, it really does put the lie to arguments about the media being fearless defenders of democratic ideals. Especially when the reporters spent much of the build up to the election talking about how dreadful and repressive the Bush administration was.
ChrisWWW, do you mind telling me how many homosexuals have been hanged by our government during the last eight years? And the number of women convicted of adultery who were stoned by order of the government during the past eight years? These events have happened, and have been well documented in Iran during the past eight years. Nothing of the sort has happened here. Now, it seems to me, that no matter how much one disagrees with the Bush administration, no matter how much one believes the Republicans were wrong in their refusal to talk to the Iranian government, we still have not engaged in any of the repressive practices I have named. So why does the media ignore these activities? Where’s the great concern for human rights and women’s rights? Remember those comments during the election about the danger the Republicans posed to women’s rights if the McCain / Palin ticket won? Or how about all the unsubstantiated comments about Palin’s personal and political life which were all proven false, but the media cheerfully reported but then didn’t denounce? Stuff like the nasty little comments about Trig being Palin’s daughter’s child, or her strong arming the library to ban books (both false)?
This is already too long, I won’t try and list all the howlers about Cuba and various Latin leftist guerrillas. Again, I think the important point is this: As in the case of Iran, the media have tended to be very deferential to repressive governments, and have not annoyed their hosts by asking too many impolitic questions. While the NPR coverage over the past year has gradually been a bit more honest about noting the lack of food and other needs in Cuba, there is nothing too critical of the current regime in the commentary.
Orson,
I just don’t see this deference you’re talking about. But I guess I mainly watch and read mainstream news sources where the question is not whether or not Iran is bad, but how many bombs we need to drop on them.
^^^^ Now that was hyperbole