Tag Results for Iran

For the first time in its 61 year history, a prestigious Polk Award has honored the work of the anonymous bystander for videotaping the murder of an Iranian protestor named Neda. The committee says its recognizing the contribution of ordinary people in the changing media world. But does holding a camera make someone a journalist?

The gruesome death of a woman is caught on video and quickly become a symbol of Iran's protest. But networks disagreed over how much of the graphic video to be broadcast.

Opposition protesters in Iran are effectively using Twitter and other social networking sites to protest the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the media picks the "tweets" up as source. Is this the future of journalism?

We're just putting the finishing touches on this week's Beat the Press broadcast show. Here's the 411:

Host: Emily Rooney

Panelists: Callie Crossley, Dan Kennedy, Adam Reilly, Kara Miller

Topics:

NECN sale: Comcast buys out Hearst, takes control of NECN, and shows longtime head honcho Charlie Kravetz the door. What's ahead for the local cable network?

Twittering the revolution: Opposition protesters in Iran are effectively using Twitter and other social networking sites to protest the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The media is using Twitter too, but not as effectively.

RNC vs. ABC: ABC news is airing a major health care special from the White House next week, and the Republicans are demanding a State-of-the-Union-type response. ABC says no way.

Flu disclosure: Massachuetts had its first swine flu death, but officials are refusing to release the identity of the victim or details of her medical history. Do members of the public - particularly people who may have come into contact with her - have a right to that information?

I know as much as the above average informed citizen about what's going on in Iran these days, which isn't much, because much of what I'm reading is coming from Twitter.

As International Relations lecturer Guive Mirfendereski put it on "Greater Boston," a lot of the unrest can be chalked up to youth and nice weather. As for whether there is any real 1979 style uprising going on, we don't know. That's because much of the foreign press was kicked out after their 1-week visas ran out following last week's election

So now we're left with the Twitter set, and frankly, I'm not buying a lot of it. Many would have us believe there's some sort of semi pro-democracy thing going on there, when these are the same people who back a candidate with about as many democratic ideals as the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Give me NBC's Richard Engel any time over any one of the thousands of these Twitter types. Why? Because he knows how to get the story and how to tell it.

The torrent of images from Iranian street protests over last Friday's disputed presidential election has slowed to a trickle, due mostly to restrictions placed on foreign media outlets by the country's religious leaders.

The government has banned foreign media from covering rallies in Tehran, which began with supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi protesting the supposed landslide victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Because of the ban, many news outlets were forced to report from inside hotels and offices rather than risk arrest for being on the street.

The BBC World Service is accusing Iran of "heavy" electronic jamming, apparently aimed at disrupting reporting of the disputed presidential election there.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared a landslide winner over the weekend, but supporters of his rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, have taken to the streets by the tens of thousands, alleging election fraud.

The Guardian newspaper reports that BBC World Service director Peter Horrocks said that the networks had traced jamming signals from inside Iran directed at a satellite used by the BBC's Persian TV service. He also said a BBC reporter and cameraman covering demonstrations in Tehran were briefly arrested and then released.

Meanwhile, New England Cable News has received some good web traction for this report about the role of social media in the post-election period. And if you're looking for some more good reporting, check out the work that our friends over at Boston-based GlobalPost are doing.

Journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been held by the secretive government of North Korea since last month, and now we’re learning that they’ll face a secret trial. But not all the news on journalists overseas is bad, Roxana Saberi has been released by Iran.

The release of imprisoned American journalist Roxana Saberi is great news which lays to rest none of the troubling questions raised by her arrest and sham conviction on phony "spying" charges. It was heartening to see journalists across the country rally behind Saberi's persecution, and I look forward to learning more about exactly what political or other pressures were brought to bear on the Iranian goons who threw her in jail.

But I'm sure journalists everywhere also noted the fact of her bogus eight year sentence, and that cannot help but have a chilling effect on whatever media interest there is in penetrating that dangerously-closed society. 

When we do not have insightful, firsthand reporting, we operate in the dark, and that never fails to get us in trouble. Iraq was a grim case study in what happens when you don't really know what's going on (no thanks either to our inadequate intelligence capacity); Iran taught us that lesson once before in the 1970s when we failed to anticipate the fall of the Shah and the rise of Islamofascism.

Iran wants better relations with the new US president. The US wants to talk to Iran about its nuclear program. Could geopolitics lead to freedom for imprisoned journalist Roxana Saberi?