"The reality is that the Iranian population is overwhelmingly secular, pro-Western, and peace-loving. It is a fact that both leading American politicians and international analysts have repeatedly had to acknowledge: after Israel, Iran is the country in the Middle East with the most pro-Western population. The population wants a modern, free Iran, not the Islamic occupation in Iran that has held the country in an iron grip."
Yes.
And then the question remains, which no one in the newsroom apparently has asked themselves - who does it serve when you report the outermost veneer - the Lie that a murderous regime has used enormous resources to stage - as if it were the voice of the people?
The correspondent stands in Tehran and says "the Iranians". But he does not stand among the Iranians. He stands where the regime has placed him, among those the regime has bussed in, and he calls what the camera sees the people.
Try moving the picture home.
When Stalin - the architect behind the systematic killing of multimillions of people, documented in the regime's own archives - died in 1953, the Danish Communist Party here at home mourned sincerely (I know it's almost incomprehensible to imagine today... but they really did).
"Land og Folk" mourned on the front page, and at the parliamentary election six weeks later, the party got 4.8 percent of the votes.
Now imagine a foreign correspondent who had stood in the middle of that mourning crowd and reported home that "the Danes are in mourning over Stalin"....
Anyone who wasn't stone blind would have seen the error immediately. Not because the grief wasn't genuine among those standing there - but because they weren't "the Danes".
It wouldn't even require complicated journalism to correct. Just one sentence. A small piece of service information - that what you're seeing is the core the regime can mobilize - and that millions outside the frame celebrated in hiding, while the regime shot at those who honked in joy.
If you leave out that sentence, you are not reporting FROM Iran.
You are reporting FOR Iran.
Is that really what you want?
