A Small Fisking
CNN Correspondent Kasra Naji explains why the reformers lost in Iran’s recent parliamentary election:
They lost a good deal of credibility with the Iranian public because they failed to initiate many of the reforms they had promised. One could argue that in parliament their efforts to legislate reformist bills were blocked at every turn by the hardline Guardian Council. And there is plenty of evidence to back that argument.
But at the end of the day, they failed to deliver on important issues. And in some cases when many people expected them to stand up to the hardliners’ excesses outside parliament, they proved feeble. I met a lot of people in the past few days who said to me that even if thousands of reformists had not been barred from standing in the elections, they still would not have voted for them.
Ahem.
Could it be the reformers lost because the most well-known ones were banned from running?
Could they have failed in their reforms because they’ve been stymied (sometimes jailed or disappeared) by the mullahs?
Could they have “proved feeble” because of Iran’s increasingly thuggish police state?
And how much more firmly could they have stood against the hardliner’s “excesses outside parliament,” when those excesses included the murder and imprisonment of the reformer’s student allies?
If you ever wonder why CNN is accused of bias, look no further than the words of their own correspondents.
UPDATE: Laurence Simon writes to CNN.
Feh. What Liberal bias in the news?
The Sham Of Iranian "Democracy"
I haven’t been nearly as active on the Iranian election as I should have, although the results of those elections were never really in doubt. the rigged elections resulted in a predictable win for the hardliners, meaning that any hope…
[says in a zombie-like monotone voice]
CNN is not biased.
CNN is not biased.
That’s not liberal bias, Cybrludite. A real liberal would be against fascism. These people aren’t real liberals. They’re stodgy, uninformed apparatchiks. CNN is just a bureaucracy only interested in access. They soft pedaled the horrors of Saddam so they could stay in Iraq and here they are again soft pedalling the evil of the mullahs. Even worse. CNN is our own Pravda. Pravda wasn’t liberal. It was totalitarian.
…and one wonders how the liberal media can’t see the liberal bias, but they can certainly point out the conservative bias in other media outlets. CNN is cetainly bias, they just don’t see it becasue of there bias.
Let’s be charitable. Isn’t it possible it’s not bias, merely incompetence? With far less in the way of resources, CNN continues to suck hind . . . drag behind FOX. So maybe what looks on the face like bias, is ineptness.
Dear Mr. Green:
What you’re neglecting is that if CNN reported what’s actually going on, they’d lose access. And if they lost access they couldn’t report whatever it is they’re reporting which certainly isn’t the news.
I wonder if they’re paying the Iranians for access to the country and the privilege of covering up the truth just like they paid the Iraqis.
Based on his track record with Iraq and other dictatorships and repressive regimes, how much bribe money do you think that CNN’s Eason Jordan pays Iranian officials to get hardliner-filtered access to Iran?
I personally like the idea of incompetence. And that’s based in part on lack of access. One can speculate all day. But that’s not “news.”
Could this also be the handiwork of dictators’ lapdog Eason Jordan?
VodkaPundit unloads on CNN’s moron-on-the-street Kasra Naji: They lost a good deal of credibility with the Iranian public because they failed to initiate many of the reforms they had promised. One could argue that in parliament their efforts to legisla…
Roger your correct it is not liberal bias. It is there typical bias. They always lean Socialist at CNN. Socialism in real world practice has always slowly worked it’s way toward Totaltarism. CNN has no problem with Totalarism when it is perform with a centralized Socialist Premise. It is exactly from this basis why Liberalism has become a bad name in America. It has almost no Libertarian concepts left. They have a total desire to centrally micromanage our lives.
Could this also be the handiwork of dictators’ lapdog Eason Jordan?
VodkaPundit unloads on CNN’s moron-on-the-street Kasra Naji: They lost a good deal of credibility with the Iranian public because they failed to initiate many of the reforms they had promised. One could argue that in parliament their efforts to legisla…
Yeah, I think Mr. Simon is right on this one. Believe me, I’d like nothing more than to yell “liberal bias” from the highest hilltop and I think he’s a little off in saying liberals are against fascism, rather they are against fascism only when it’s a pro-American fascist. However, I think most people are correct that in this case they whitewashing the issue here because of the issue of access (a la Iraq) and also partially because of incompetence. Remeber, they reported on the “election” of Saddam in the fall of 2002 as an actual event that was legitamate in that “different strokes for different folks” form of “objectivity”. Oh sure, they covered themselves with the “some say the election is not legitamate” game but they refused to call a spade a spade and say that it was not democractic but the electoral equivalent of a shotgun wedding. Iran’s election was only slightly more representative than the average Cuban election, but it was not legitamate in any meaningful way. Surely, CNN knows this, but it’s either blinded by values-free so-called objectivity (all sides are equal) or they are just sucking up for access. Now, what would be nice is if Fox News or somebody would highlight this and ask CNN about this.
I believe Mr. Roger Simon is correct, this isn’t a case of liberal bias. If there is bias here it is a bias against competent journalism or worse, as Mr. Lawrence Simon has suggested a bias against independent reporting to maintain the illusion of “access.”
Truly pathetic.
Sorry, that would be Mr. Laurence Simon.
Don’t get me started on CNN. I remember over the summer when Wolf Blitzer had some blame-America author on CNN and they were talking about Iran. Wolf Blitzer said something like, “there are two trains of thought in Iran — the reform minded democrats and the `supposed’ bad guys.” He actually called the mullahs “supposed” bad guys.
One only need look to the recent history of CNN and other media giants in Saddam’s Iraq. Fear of angering the power thugs who may restrict access, murder sources or worse, CNN and others served as world-ranging megaphones for Saddam’s lies.
This is the money quote:
“I met a lot of people in the past few days… they still would not have voted for them.”
Same bullcrap, different day.
I was listening to BBC the other day and they were discussing Iran’s political make-up. They claimed that, much like the Bush administration, Iran is divided between moderates and hard-liners. I stared at my radio for a minute, amazed, and then had to turn it off. Not only was it a stupid comment, but it had no relation to the point of the piece.
This quote is from CNN’s main story on the Iranian “elections”:
“Some [Iranian] analysts and intellectuals have started to openly complain that Iran is becoming a religious dictatorship, little different from the monarchy deposed 25 years ago.”
‘Becoming a religious dictatorship…’
What planet are these CNN guys living on?
IT IS A RELIGIOUS DICTATORSHIP!
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/02/22/iran.elections/index.html
Naji has a serious case of rose-colored- glasses going on. His words aren’t biased, his view of the whole situation is hopelessely naieve.
He may as well been describing a midterm congressional election in the United States when he was looking at a stacked deck election in a backwards mullahocracy.
CNN has more to worry about than bias in this case. Sloppy journalism and a complete vacancy of history and context are for more egregious errors here.
I don’t think it’s necessarily bias, I think it’s just a narrow worldview combined with cluelessness and idiocy. There’s a very odd tendency in journalism not to question authority unless it’s western and especially American authority. Which just goes to show how tremendously unsophisticated most reporters really are, rather than the opposite, which they would have us believe.
If they focused on the injustice of the elections it would reinforce the current conservative worldview. This would help Bush, even if indirectly, in the coming election. In similar fashion, they are not portraying any positive developments in Iraq, which are widespread.
You think the US anchors are bad, CNN Int’l -especially in the morning- is the worst. Richard Quest and Becky Anderson are blowhards and in love with the sound of their own voices. When interviewing guests, Ms Anderson makes grand guestures with her hands (as if that makes her questions more intellectual) & Mr Quest has the ridiculous rolling of his Rs (Brrrrrrilliant) which distracts viewers on what’s being said. Each will ask a question, then rephrase it 2 or 3 times as if the viewer doesn’t understand.
It’s too much to stomach anymore.
It’s time to stop pretending that CNN is simply “biased” and start looking at the bigger picture of why CNN reporting is almost indistinguishable from Al Jazeera.
I
Shouldn’t we start a bouycott or something? Instead of just bitching …
or a boycott, which ever you prefer.
A small (but dead-on) fisking
Stephen Green takes on CNN’s take on the Iran elections: CNN Correspondent Kasra Naji explains why the reformers lost in…
If ‘real liberals’ are against fascism, they better sue all of those who supported the continued rule of Saddam, Uday, and Qusay last Spring. It seems like they claimed to be liberal It seems like the only prominent liberal to fit the description of “against fascism in all cases” that I have seen on the subject is Christopher “Hitch the Snitch” Hitchens.
Fascism has always been popular on the left. They cover this fact up by calling it socialism. New wine in old skins.
Go Read Cara Remal
Her Dear Friends essay goes out to her liberal friends who are against the war. Along the way she quotes Johann Hari to explain the two traditions in liberalism, and why some support the war and some don’t: