New Business As Usual?

This week’s coverage of Obama on Al Manar continued to cast a hopeful image of Obama and emphasize potential source of friction between the US and Israel.

Al Manar’s coverage of Obama’s actions vis-à-vis Latin America seemed to give Obama the benefit of the doubt and said that Obama attempting to build a new cooperative relationship with Latin American states. Another article mentioned changes to the American stance on Cuba and quoted Obama’s comments on these changes: "I think it's a signal of our good faith that we wanted to move beyond the Cold War mentality that's existed over the last 50 years. And hopefully we'll see some signs that Cuba wants to reciprocate.” The article provided viewers with extensive quotes from Obama explaining his stance on Cuba: “I don't expect Cuba to beg. No one is asking for anyone to beg. What we're looking for is some signal that there are going to be changes in how Cuba operates."


Al Manar also covered sources of disagreement and future tensions between the U.S. and Israel. One article mentioned that the Obama administration is reconsidering its planned boycott of the Durban II Anti-Racism Summit held at the UN. The article pointed out that the Racism Summit is deeply opposed by Israel and that this US action is likely to upset Israel. Al Manar also reported on US envoy George Mitchell’s trip to Israel, saying that Mitchell “pressed the two-state solution” in his meetings with Israeli officials. The article also included Mitchell’s remarks during his time in Morocco, which were described in the following manner “Washington considered the 'creation' of a Palestinian state as the only way forward.” After mentioning Mitchell’s statement the article mentioned that Mitchell’s remarks “could set Israel on a collision course” with the US.

Bias Found in VOA Broadcasts to Iran

According to Nicholas Kralev's Washington Times article, the State Department investigation has found serious flaws in Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts to Iran. The report charged VOA's Persian News Network (PNN) broadcasts of being politically biased.

Apparently, none of the executive producers even understand Farsi, which means its broadcasts are "aired without high-level approval."

"In part because of the language issue, managing editors report not to the executive producer of their show, but to a Persian-speaking senior executive editor," the report said." This arrangement is the source of confusion and sometimes of conflict. Lacking the language of the programs they oversee, as well as a background in Iranian affairs, executive producers must rely on their managing editor to approve the shows' content and resolve differences of opinion among staff," it said. Those differences often result in deep mistrust and "a perception of cronyism" among the staff, "the operation of cliques, and the hiring and rewarding of unqualified people," which "creates ill will and can hamper the employee's effectiveness in the workplace," the report said.

Over the last decade or so, the U.S. government has increased its spending on broadcasting to Iran, allocating $17 million this year alone, as it considers it an important public diplomacy tool to influence Iranian public opinion.

The BBG's mission, according to its 2008-13 strategic plan, is "to promote freedom and democracy and to enhance understanding through multimedia communication of accurate, objective and balanced news, information, and other programming about America and the world to audiences overseas." But apparently some "anti-American content to creep into broadcasts."

"While everyone involved with the operation is cognizant of the importance of VOA broadcasting to Iran, some of those who work in PNN appear to lack a clear understanding of the mission of PNN and the centrality of the VOA charter to their work, underscoring the need for additional training," the report said.

Mehdi Jedinia, an Iranian journalist, said that "unfortunately, VOA Persian is not making full use of the opportunity to reach Iranians and does not fully reflect U.S. diplomacy toward Iran."
The service "could help influence Iranian public opinion if they created more imaginative programming that fits Iranian circumstances," he said. "However, despite repeated statements by the U.S. government that it has no intention of forcing regime change in Iran, these media seem to support Tehran's allegations that the United States wants to change the Iranian government by financially supporting the opposition, imposing economic sanctions and isolating Iran in the international arena."

He said the service features "interviews with the family of the late shah and Iranian opposition leaders" and sometimes "has superficial and shallow programs that come through more as ideological propaganda, rather than professional journalism."

The State Department report also questioned the continuation of PNN's radio service, "given the round-the-clock broadcasts of Radio Farda," a joint project between VOA and U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is based in Prague.

Mehdi Khalaji, a Washington Institute fellow and former Radio Farda producer wrote that, "Some of Radio Farda's Prague team members are noticeably anti-American, which can be discerned from their language and the news they choose to produce," and "some Washington team members are well-known for their anti-Islamic stance, their opposition to the Iranian regime," and "they reflect their own political views in news production as well as feature segments," he wrote.

Though the report is not all negative, “VOA successfully built PNN into its first full-fledged network in an extraordinarily short period of time,” said the report. “Given the U.S. strategic interest in communicating with Iranians, PNN represents a major achievement in setting up a network that reaches approximately 29 percent of Iranians in Iran," the report said.

VOA's management welcomed the State Department recommendations.

See the full State department report here.

Iran's Top Story is John Stewart

Millions of Americans watched the The Daily Show's Jon Stewart's showdown with CNBC's Jim Cramer but apparently Iran was tuning in as well... or at least the PressTV foreign corespondents. One of the Press TV top stories was reporting just that.

In a series of pointed verbal barbs, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart's funnyman has taken Cramer and his cable network employer, CNBC, to task by claiming they were "in bed" with Wall Street executives and former government officials.

"I understand you want to make finance entertaining, but it's not a fu**ing game," Stewart said during a recorded interview, segments of which aired on Thursday night.

During the face-off with Stewart, however, Cramer appeared contrite.

Stewart accused analysts -- including Cramer -- of betraying average people who trusted financial advisors and poured money into market-oriented accounts for the long term only to lose their money and allow Wall Street to use those savings to generate short-term profits.

If you missed the episode, feel free to watch it here. I wonder why they didn't pick up the story on the Colbert Report, which comes on right after, about Iranian New Year, and Ahmadinijad's involuntary endorsement of American-Jewish products.

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Al Manar Reacts to John Kerry

There was quite a lot of coverage of the United States across all forms of Al Manar’s media over the past two weeks in response to John Kerry’s visits to Lebanon and Syria and his request that Syria help disarm Hezbollah. In response to this perceived attack on Hezbollah, Al Manar carried stories about U.S. interference in Lebanon’s political affairs on television and in both the Arabic and English websites.

Al Manar TV ran an interview with Hezbollah MP Husayn Al-Hajj Hasan on February 20th where Hasan said that John Kerry’s recent trip to Lebanon was a violation of sovereignty. The interview addressed Kerry’s meeting with Syrian officials where he asked that Syria help to disarm Hezbollah, of which Hasan said:

“What is noteworthy in this issue is that the Americans have asked for a Syrian interference in Lebanon, while those who falsely allege to be concerned with sovereignty, freedom, and independence in Lebanon have not denounced the US demand of a Syrian interference in Lebanon. Why? Because it seems that this demand suits the US and Israeli interests, and no one of them can harm the US and Israeli interests regardless of the Syrian response, which was clear that Syria does not accept this, and is not a tool for the US policies."

A similar story was featured on Al Manar’s Arabic website February 24th, where Al Manar interviewed Vice-president of the Higher Shiite Council Sheikh Abdel-Amir Qabalan who blamed the lack of consensus on a budget for the Council for South Lebanon on the inference of the American embassy. Qabalan accused the U.S. of trying to interfere in every Lebanese detail, obstructing all political and diplomatic values and norms, saying:

"They are interested in knowing all details, they want to know even the salaries paid to the martyrs' families as well as to the former detainees and wounded people.”

Al Manar’s English website ran comparable stories, including a story on February 20th where Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Shaykh Na'im Qasim called for the U.S. to stop interfering in Lebanese elections, saying:

"We want the US to stop interfering in our elections, to stop supporting the criminal Zionists, to stop conspiring against our country and people, and to stop all the crimes it commits with its policies and positions.”

Al Manar English complimented these stories about American interference in Lebanese affairs with op-ed pieces about American weakness from Western voices: an article warning the U.S. not to treat Afghanistan like Iraq by Irish journalist Patrick Cockburn and an article arguing that the U.S economy is designed to fail by U.S. federal government analyst Richard C. Cook.

PressTV Viewers have Suprising Opinions and Surprising Nationalities.

In this week's PressTV.com "Quick Vote" visitors are asked the following;

QUICK VOTE

What will be the most likely scenario for the aftermath of the US economic crisis?
It will lead to the collapse of capitalism The capitalistic system will modify itself and survive the crisis Obama will defuse the crisis without any major modifications in the capitalistic system
	Results

The results are interesting in that the majority of respondents feel that it will lead to the collapse of capitalism though a close second goes to those who believe the system will adjust and survive.

Results
It will lead to the collapse of capitalism (46%)
The capitalistic system will modify itself and survive the crisis (41%)
Obama will defuse the crisis without any major modifications in the capitalistic system (13%)

What makes this poll even more interesting is looking at who these respondents are. I referred to Alexa which tracks website traffic to see who PressTV's audience is. According to Alexa..

Presstv.com users come from these countries:

United States22.0%

Iran21.0%

United Kingdom14.6%

Canada10.2%

Indonesia7.5%

Switzerland6.7%

South Africa2.0%

Trinidad and Tobago1.8%

Norway1.6%

Cyprus1.3%

India1.2%

Netherlands0.8%

Bulgaria0.8%

Poland0.7%

Australia0.7%

Turkey0.7%

United Arab Emirates0.6%

Other countries5.7%

Regardless of their largely UK-oriented programming, the Brit's aren't their largest audience.. the United States is, with Iran coming in at a close 2nd. It looks as if Press TV has both a domestic and international audience. In looking at past poles, such as the one a few weeks ago which stated that 78% of Press TV poll respondents (15,575 respondents) felt that Israel threatens stability and security in the volatile Middle East. Only 15% of the respondents to the poll said that Iran is the main source of concern for the stability of the region, while a mere 3% said Egypt should be feared, and another 3 percent believed none of the choices threatened the stability of the region. Knowing the large US following, it puts a different spin on those numbers.

Between the Headlines

Iran's PressTV program "Between the Headlines" goes through a few major headlines from around the world to give an Iranian response to the topics. Today's program singled out four major stories including the The New Statesman article All of Us Live by the Logic of Finance and the Economist's, That Curious Relationship about a British resident and Ethiopian citizen, Binyam Mohamed, who alleges that he was tortured by American agents. According to the Economist, British courts decided they could not publish a summery of these events publicly because "America would retaliate by withholding vital intelligence in future, thereby placing Britain at risk." The anchors discussed in full, America's use of torture in Guantanimo Bay and whether the media will pressure stories like this to come out so that such circumstances could never happen again. Interesting that such human rights topics comes up and the correspondents seemed so concerned about the truth coming out about the U.S.'s torture allegations when Iran itself isn't exactly a poster child for human rights. One of the guests did feel it necessary to note that this torture happened during the Bush administration, not the Obama administration, "and we all know what the Bush administration was about." I would have loved for him to elaborate.