Hey, Supreme Leader, your disregard for human dignity is showing!

By Andrew Baker

Sometimes injustice comes cloaked in a shroud of false evidence and hear-say. This time it slapped us across our collective face. According to an October 10^th New York Times article, the Iranian government plans to execute 3 citizens that were arrest amongst many others for protesting Iran’s June 12^th presidential election. Go read the Times article here . I didn’t know the fate of those mentioned in the story at the time I drafted this but I can be sure that what they are being executed for offends one of the most important tenants of a democratic government, the free ability to dissent and protest. American’s tend to be suckers for a good revolution – it’s a part of our national identity. Our political restlessness has to be at least a contributing reason for the amount of coverage this event received over the summer. We saw compelling images of young people peacefully demonstrating in the streets. Some were beaten or shot to death by Iranian “peace keepers.” Four months later we finally hear something about the fate of those that stood up. I want to take a critical look at the story mentioned above from the Times - see how they did at reporting this matter that should be close to all American’s hearts

What they got right

• To my knowledge they were the first to report on this issue (maybe its just cause I get their RSS feed) and they provided their readership with a good piece of reporting.
• They also gave a really detailed account of the status of the remained incarcerated.
• Because getting the truth from state media in Iran can be a real stumbling block, they seem to have done a pretty good job of getting perspectives from other sources – I’ll touch on the short-comings of this later.
• They seem to do an effective job reintroducing the importance of the issue at hand by reconstructing the events of June.

Where they missed the mark

• Even granting a little leniency, some of the sources the Times uses don’t hold up to the smell test. One being a “Reform-aligned website” another being an unnamed Iranian government official.
• Some of their reports aren’t backed at all by identifiable sources; namely, the parts of the article that mention abuse to inmates seem to lack some clout.
• I don’t mind as much that they provided the American perspective on the issue, again a function of lacking sources close to the situation. But if they are going to show the American perspective (Amnesty International) they should have at least tried to obtain comment from at least one official in the Obama administration. I think it could have strengthened the story.

Although not an exhaustive list from a media expert, I hope this provided a little depth to the issue. I’ll try to provide some type of critical evaluation of news reports on important issues throughout the life of the blog.

(photo credit: vimooz.com)