The Media Research Center continued its rage at coverage of President Trump’s bombing of Iran that was even slightly negative:
- Chris Matthews Calls Trump a King Citing Iran, SOTU Handout of ‘Monarch’s Gifts’
- Media Elitists Trash Trump’s SOTU, Fearmonger Over Iran
- Network Newscasts Largely Skip Iran House Votes; Two Cover Britney Spears DUI
- MS NOW’s Elise Jordan on Iran: Trump Team’s ‘Repressed Masculinity’ Makes Me ‘Puke’
- NYT’s Sanger, Deep State’s Bertrand Wildly Insist Iran Was Not an Imminent Threat
- CNN’s Numbers Guy Harry Enten: Take Early Negative Polls On Iran War With A Grain Of Salt
- NO SURPRISE: ABC Sunday Panel Unanimously Dumps on Operation Epic Fury
The MRC also got mad that media outlets told both sides of the story by talking to Iranian officials. Alex Christy complained in a Feb. 28 article:
After the United States and Israel began combat operations against Iran, NBC’s Peter Alexander and Laura Jarrett welcomed Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to Saturday’s edition of Today to get his perspective. The worst part of the interview was when Jarrett opened up the floor for Araghchi to give his “message to the president,” which consisted of an airing of grievances that were not fact-checked.
Jarrett simply wondered, “Sir, you heard, likely, the president of the United States talk about regime change in Iran this morning in his recorded statements. What is your message to the president?”
Araghchi tried to project strength, “Well, I think this is mission impossible. You know, for regime change, you cannot do regime change while millions of people are supporting this so-called regime. Just look at what happened in the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. We had altogether about 30 million people in the streets, in all cities of Iran, in support of the Islamic Republic and in support of the whole system.”
Roughly 30 million Iranians voted in the last regime-controlled election, so the idea that 30 million people demonstrated in support of the regime is probably wildly exaggerated.
We don’t remember Christy fact-checking Trump or any member of his administration this hard. Or at all, really.
Tim Graham huffed on his March 2 podcast:
President Trump ordered a new offensive in Iran over the weekend, taking out top Iranian tyrants like Ayatollah Khamenei. Bizarrely, our media composed puffy obituaries for the Ayatollah and gave Iran’s foreign minister a softball platform when they all pressure each other to be ever more hostile in questioning our elected president.
MRC President David Bozell and NewsBusters Associate Editor Nick Fondacaro joined the show. Nick pointed out that over the weekend, The Washington Post ran an obituary titled: “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, is dead at 86.” The paper warmly remembered the brutal Islamic dictator as a “avuncular figure” with an “easy smile” and a love for “Persian poetry.” Why must American press outlets swoon over our enemies like that?
The often savage Sunday shows go soft on Iran, asking spokesmen open-ended questions of a “what say you” nature. On ABC’s This Week, Senator James Lankford (R-OK) called host George Stephanopoulos out for platforming the Iranian foreign minister and allowing him to spin.
Actually, Graham is denouncing here what he has previously demanded of non-right-wing networks when they interview Trump or members of his administration: softball questions, total feality and no fact-checks.
clay Waters grumbled in a March 3 post:
The surprise attack on Iran’s leadership by the United States and Israel on February 28 was greeted on PBS by skepticism of Trump’s long-term plans, while avoiding the vital historical context of Iran’s authoritarian Islamist regime.
Worse was the pro-regime coverage of the joint mission from special correspondent Reza Sayah in Tehran, who previously worked for anti-American and anti-Israel outlet Al-Jazeera and served as CNN’s correspondent based in Cairo. He’s currently also appearing on Drop Site News, an anti-Trump, anti-Israel news network on Substack.
From the last minutes of PBS’s special “War with Iran” coverage on Saturday featuring the weekday News Hour team, with Sayah portraying a dark day for the Iranian people (never mind those mass celebrations) while portraying the awful regime as a persecuted pipsqueak in the region:
[…]Sayah took Tehran’s side in the propaganda war.
And Waters has taken the Trump Regime Media side in the propaganda war.