Media Curmudgeon

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June 25, 2009

Revolution: Repression Rocks the Media In The Early Innings

Guest blogger Paul Talbot, a former radio station news director, writes:

You’ve got to hand it to the old Ayatollah. He sure knows how to dam up the flow of information. His moves have been so elegant and effective that Dick Cheney has abruptly exited the lecture circuit to study these repressive chops.

So how long can the Ayatollah Ali Khamenai keep things corked up while all of technology’s tools keep prying at the lid of the regime’s repressive chest of horrors?

We know that Iranian voices are being muffled. And we suspect that if we listen carefully enough, we can hear something that will help us decipher these events.

But listening is always tough. Listening to Iran right now is tougher than hitting .400. And if you’re a news organization trying to cover the Iranian revolution, uprising, situation, affair, whatever it may be, the challenges are obviously beyond daunting.

Check out the New York Times of 6/24…

“It is impossible to confirm first-hand the extent of the new violence.”

And check out the BBC…

“Severe reporting restrictions placed on the BBC and other foreign media mean many reports from the country cannot be verified immediately.”

But don’t bother checking out Al Jazeera. It has squandered an opportunity to establish itself as a credible member of the world’s journalistic community by failing to report anything more substantive than western news organizations.

So in this morass is there a winner? Is it premature, or even meaningful, to anoint an organization with “Best Coverage” accolades?

Probably. More than likely the story has a long run ahead. Revolutions aren’t easily scripted. But right now NPR is the clubhouse leader.

And did you catch this “dissident” quoted by the regime? The poor sap who said “I think we were provoked by networks like the BBC and the VOA to take such immoral actions.”

The streets of Tehran are where the value of thoughtful, credible, sourced and substantiated reporting trump any other content card. As we watch, wait, and wonder in real time, as we struggle to put these events, which we are unable to define, into some kind of context, we are reminded of the enduring importance of great reporters and great editors.

We are also reminded that whatever inning of this brutal Iranian game we’re in, totalitarianism is scoring all the runs against citizen technology. The Ayatollah and his cronies cut deals with Siemens and Nokia for tools to monitor and control communications, an investment paying off in spades.

And we understand that each of us defines our own right and wrong sides of history. But what we don’t understand is how this revolution will ultimately be covered. We’re not quite sure about the role that technology and the shifting media landscape will play in both its bloodshed and its storytelling.

Posted by Charles Warner at June 25, 2009 3:10 PM

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