On the Cowardice of Bill Keller, the Ayatollah of the New York Times

Right on, Al! Great to see the self serving nonsense advanced by so-called journalists on behalf of so-called journalism (though really on behalf of themseves) come crashing down right before our eyes.

What's up with all those expensive foreign bureaus, Bill? You know, the ones that cannot be replicated by those who write in their P.J.s from their basements.

In case people didn't catch it last week, it's absolutely hilarious (and prescient):
NYT pwned by The Daily Show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7_Qkc_3A5I

Very nice.

i recomend you all read this. very moving account:

http://tehranbureau.com/2009/06/16/1984/

Maybe it's just as well that Bill Keller ended his cameo appearance on the Iranian front lines, because before he took flight, he left a piece of analysis on the front page of the Sunday New York Times that might eventually take its place alongside the reports of Walter Duranty of the Times, who shamelessly praised Stalin's show trials of the 1930s, or the Times editorialist in 1861, who after one month of the Lincoln presidency, pronounced judgment:  "It is idle to conceal the fact that the Administration thus far has not met public expectation," and went on to wring his hands about the "vigor, intelligence and success" of the new Confederacy.

One day before the biggest public outpouring of dissent in 30 years of Iranian history, the Keller piece was headlined, "Wide Reverberations as Door Slams on Hope of Change". Keller noted in the article that on Sunday there were "hurried meetings...among Iran's leading political figures...trying to influence Ayatollah Khamenei," but quoted a local economist as saying that the Ayatollah's statement on Saturday calling on the public to respect the election's results "has put an end to political negotiations from above."  Right, Bill, that source was a genius.  The very next day, the Ayatollah reversed himself after seeing one million Iranians in the streets.  I guess none of them saw the door slamming shut on their hope. 

The ink was hardly dry on Keller's piece before the Iranian people pulled the rug out from under it.

one of my old j-school colleagues passed around a comment by Morley Safer, which went, "I trust a citizen journalist as much as I trust a citizen doctor."

Some of my other peer offered a "hear, hear!" and said they were going to pass it around.  I asked:

a.  if Morley had the dedication to pursue journalism if his CBS paycheck evaporated, because citizen journists did, and;

b.  if any of their students, in fact if anybody under the age of 50 even knew who Morley Safer was?

Now, just 48 hours later, Iran shows just how arrogant and risible Safer's statement is.  I can't think of ANY valuable on-site information I've gleaned from a professional journalist.  I've relied on people like Sullivan and Nico Pitney to aggregate data, and on academics here to make sense of it, but all the reportage I've seen has come from student Twitterers and other Iranian YouTubers. 

On Monday night I was riveted to Twitter accounts of student standoffs with plain clothes police at Tehran University.  I was half convinced that every time I refreshed I was going to read the last doomed transmission from an Iranian patriot. 

My TV was on in the background and during a gap between tweets I made a tour of the cable news stations.  Larry King re-runs.  Nancy Grace re-runs.  Financial news from Asia.  NOBODY was offering news from the country, and this was before the international press faced the crackdown. 

The world has come to depend on citizen doctors this week, Mr. Safter, because they're the only ones with the guts to go into the battlefield and treat the wounded.

did satellite phone reports on the Nightly News and Rachel Maddow from inside his office with a picture of Tehran in the background and did reports describing what he saw on the streets but explained he couldn't take any pictures because it was against the rules.  Yeah, we wouldn't want you to break any rules or get in any trouble.

But the two additional years of J-School, on top of the BA, would have cost as much as the entire previous four years of college combined.  Since I promised my parents that I wasn't going to be in school past four years, or take out loans to finish my schooling, I decided against it.

Boy, am I ever glad I did.

this internet/community organiser I think needs hailing!! it is the twitter person ProtesterHelp

http://twitter.com/ProtesterHelp

Strongly believe they are genuine. they are a USA citizen - a guy who is becoming a college kid tomorrow for 1st time. and he has been helping relay stuff from those who want ID protecting. also helping get major mass proxies organised and sent out safely. also helping them sort out how to organise on the ground in iran using secure internet tools, for say student medic teams for the streets and helping with downloads etc. check out what he (I presume he) has done. and I don't think he is tech savy, but has been organising and coordinating for all. 

check out!

:) celia

What do you think about the spin that the students are largely upperclass and middle class, but that Aminijad actually won because he had the support of the poor? Or that the CIA is really somehow behind the protests?

http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitpic/photos/full/12713216.jpg

This sort of thing reminds me of what I found while lurking on anti-scientology websites="you create your own enemies". Dictatorships usually do, especially among the young and intelligent and lively. The petty, arbitrary, hectoring and generally repressive attitude of the secret police and a useless ideology that is behind dictatorships make young people enemies. Dictatorship is inherently anti-young, anti-creative, and even at times anti-commerce, as only the big businesses get any benefit.

I read this the first day. It did confuse me too. and overall never know what exactly to think. however from the pictures and stories, and the Repression and injustice being reported is enough for backing them. 

when I get in touch with an iranian friend I'm going to quiz him lots about this.

here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/13/iranian-election

it reads well, but he too is really as clueless. however parts of it and his warnings about the media are deserved. 

What a crystal summary of the massive fail that is corporate media.  I'm bookmarking this post so that I can refer to it regularly in the future. 

In every authoritarian society, there are apologists for the regime.  Some are paid, some have friends in high places, and many are just comfortable with its dogmatism and predictability.  When dictators' attempts to steal elections have been foiled in part by independent vote counts (e.g. Marcos, Philippines, 1986; Pinochet, Chile, 1988), usually about a third of the electorate has still been found to  vote for the dictator, however blood-soaked his past or however dead his rhetoric.  So one apologist for the Iranian theocratic state having access to The Guardian op-ed pages is no real surprise.  This one resorts to an old ruse of such apologists:  arguing that the special cultural factors of the nation and the circuitous events of recent political history explain why, in this case, most Iranians really do love rulers who arrest women for wearing skirts that are too short or who imprison film magazine editors.  Don't believe it.  The desire for rights and justice is universal if sometimes dormant.  In Iran it's been awakened with a vengeance.

“This was turning into a test of wills. How much longer could I shop without slipping into reporting?” He can't be serious. Even worse is that he does not realize what an idiot he is. I mean, who in his effing mind can even contemplate such a comparison?

To CarolDuhart and Celia,

this myth about the protesters being latte drinking upper middle class has been disproven by, among others, a real professional journalist, Robert Fisk, with impeccable credentials. He has decades of experience in the Middle East, and he did participate in the big Monday demonstration. He is published in the Independent, and he writes:

"Not since the 1979 Iranian Revolution have massed protesters gathered in such numbers, or with such overwhelming popularity, through the boulevards of this torrid, despairing city. They jostled and pushed and crowded through narrow lanes to reach the main highway and then found riot police in steel helmets and batons lined on each side. The people ignored them all. And the cops, horribly outnumbered by these tens of thousands, smiled sheepishly and – to our astonishment – nodded their heads towards the men and women demanding freedom. Who would have believed the government had banned this march?"

"For this was not just the trendy, young, sunglassed ladies of north Tehran. The poor were here, too, the street workers and middle-aged ladies in full chador. A very few held babies on their shoulders or children by the arm, talking to them from time to time, trying to explain the significance of this day to a mind that would not remember it in the years to come that they were here on this day of days."

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-irans...

The whole piece is worth a read. His estimate of the Monday crowd at Azadi Square is a million people.

Robert Fisk is still filing from Iran; the report on his latest doings include this kick at fellow "journalists":

No-one's told me not to drive around so I go and see wounded people and go and watch these confrontations and no-one seems to bother me.

I rather think an awful lot of journalists take it too seriously. If you get in a car and go out and see things, no-one's going to stop you, frankly.

More news from Robert Fisk, one of the few real journalists. He has been Tuesday at the Vanak square in Tehran, where Ahmadinejad had called for his rally to precede the planned Moussavi rally. Both rallies seem to have been about same size, even though Moussavis was both illegal, and called off by him! The police stayed neutral, i.e. intended to protect Moussavi supporters from the Basij militia.

"The fate of Iran rested last night in a grubby north Tehran highway interchange called Vanak Square where – after days of violence – supporters of the official President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at last confronted the screaming, angry Iranians who have decided that Mirhossein Mousavi should be the president of their country. Unbelievably – and I am a witness because I stood beside them – just 400 Iranian special forces police were keeping these two armies apart. There were stones and tear gas but for the first time in this epic crisis the cops promised to protect both sides.

"Please, please, keep the Basiji from us," one middle-aged lady pleaded with a special forces officer in flak jacket and helmet as the Islamic Republic's thug-like militia appeared in their camouflage trousers and purity-white shirts only a few metres away. The cop smiled at her. "With God's help," he said. Two other policemen were lifted shoulder-high. "Tashakor, tashakor," – "thank you, thank you" – the crowd roared at them."

The Iran protest reminds me of the other "colour revolutions" and most of all it reminds me of the anti-Chavez protests in Venezuela. Westernized upper/middle class organized by US money don't want their oil income to lift up the countries poor majorities. Crying fraud is the standard method by these groups. 

seems to be remaining on scene, as well.

One thing that is interesting about all of this is the fact that iran hasn't shut down twitter yet.

The thing is that if they had the technical ability and the will to do they totally could.  It wouldn't even be that difficult and there are probably millions of ways you could do it.

Thats a problem with regimes that are "populist" and don't support intellectual behavior.  They don't have the technical ability to shut down dissent.

My suspicion is that china in a similar situation would have managed to shut down twitter.

In the future going forward there will probably need to be a system more robust than twitter.  Something that isn't as centralized and that would be more designed to resist shutdown.

"Bolivarian" - First of all, how ironic that between the time you posted your comment and I woke up to approve it, others had already relayed Robert Fisk's reports that demonstrate your claims are untrue: the opposition in Iran is multi-class, unlike the esqualidos of Venezuela.

And I'll tell you another thing (because I reported it as it was happening and remember it very well): President Chavez, even after being kidnapped at gunpoint by a military coup, did not engage in the repressive activities that the current Iranian regime is doing to put down protests. His government never prosecuted a single coup plotter. Not a one was imprisoned, beaten or tortured, much less assassinated. All of those things have happened in Iran in a matter of hours.

Yes, I have heard the claims that these millions in the streets of Iran are "upper class" but one need only look at the YouTube videos and cell-phone photos being provided not by the corporate media, but by the people themselves, to quickly grasp how untrue such statements are.

I suggest you inform yourself better both about the events in Iran and also the history in Venezuela. You could start here. One thing that marks the Bolivarian Circles in Venezuela is they always want to work with the best and most accurate information, and put a high emphasis on self-education. Before you go around using their name as your online ID, I suggest you emulate and try to be more like them first. You're shaming the name by spreading disinformation.

I'd just like to say how much I appreciate your coverage and great writing on this important issue. I'm reading regularly, just not commenting much. Its alot to absorb!

yes I completely get what you are saying. and I had already seen the robert fisk stuff, which had only kept on convincing me to ignore that article which I read days ago. I am fully behind the protesters. for more than the repression they are facing now, but have faced for decades. and these events in iran are convincing me more and more than I already did how important these freedoms are, always. I was also aware from my young iranian friend of society in iran, at least among the young, or for that matter I've met his uncle who lives there and doesn't follow the societal rules - he'd been encouraging me to visit with him but I couldn't - I regret that now. I've also watched documentaries on life there and read fasinating translated english blogs. however, I feel that it is healthy to have sckeptism and never to assume. my knowledge of iran IS or was limited. and even though we have twitter and youtube that is not the same as being there and full knowledge/insight into a country's life. I also know of extensive internet divides (part of my degree was research on this) as much in the 'west' as elsewhere and so that part was at least questionable at least until 'evidence' came along to help support argument the access is more prolific in iran, or if that was irrelevant. and the bit about MSM getting carried away without analysis, and bias unchecked, I could easily believe. so yeah, I practice caution before fully committing myself. or at least always question everything. 

-i still have some reservations on this, but they are very background now. however I am fully behind the protesters, and since that time read/understood more about the election fraud/illegitmacy as well as you say read/seen more on the wide participation and size. 

celia

Iran's Rural Vote and Election Fraud

by Eric Hooglund, a professor of politics at Bates College, Lewiston, Maine, and editor of the scholarly journal Middle East Critique.

Hey Al,

Off topic.

Just read your threedays article from your response. Does your statment about human rights condition in Venezula still stand. I was reading an article from Human Rights Watch and they seem to paint a different picture.

Could Bill Keller be acting as a decoy?  Maybe his public declarations are to advance a purpose re: keeping a NYT journalist back in Iran and below the radar.  Just a thought.

Shifferraw - Human Rights Watch has been criticized from these pages consistently ever since the 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela.

Here's some news about their antics back in 2004.

Here's HRW's director Jose Vivanco, in 2005, speaking out against the establishment of new media!

Vivanco and company are myopically dedicated to portray democratic governments as somehow opponents of human rights while they provide important cover for undemocratic regimes from Mexico to Colombia. Most recently, in his zeal to put on a clown show aimed at discrediting Venezuela, Vivanco entered the country without having applied for the same human rights observer visa that Venezuela had granted him multiple times prior. He then called a press conference, in violation of his tourist visa. He was expelled from the country (the same would definitely happen to foreigner doing that in the United States) and used his clown show to try and portray Venezuela as being opposed to human rights.

Yet on every level, Venezuela under Chavez has more press freedom, more freedom of dissent and speech, less repression, than it had in any previous administration in the country's history. You can do a search here at Narco News and read scores of stories documenting those claims. I hope you take the time to do so.

Al, you have always challenged me and I will forever be grateful for that and all that you have taught me about journalism.  Now I want to offer a bit of advice in return: be careful in your growing support for Mousavi.  This may be another April 11, 2002, and Mousavi may turn out to be another Carmona.  Some friends here in Venezuela have that feeling.

Personally, this Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube reporting on Iran scares me.  In your article on Venezuela and The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Celia wrote that I should try to “help spread Mousavi’s message.”  I see no reason in the world that I should try to “help spread Mousavi’s message.”  I’ve never been to Iran.  She now writes that she hasn’t been there either.

In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez was elected and re-elected by the majority of the voters in clean and fair elections.  The opposition did and continues to do everything possible to throw him out of power and would like the world to believe that he is a dictator, not a fairly elected president.  I have no way of knowing at this moment that President Mahmud Ahmadinejad was not fairly elected.  Does Celia?  Do any of those who are trying to spread Mousavi’s message?  Even Robert Fisk says he thinks Ahmadinejad may have won, but by a smaller margin.

The freedom that Internet gives is great, but I think a lot of people are getting sucked into something about which they don’t know anything—and may end up supporting the oppressors—who might be behind the whole Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube thing at this moment.

Citizen reporters have value—if all citizens have access to the Internet.  Al, in spite of what you say that the demonstrators are from all economic classes, I am just afraid that those who have such access to the Internet in Iran (and who can send their messages in English) are the upper economic classes and that we are not going to get the reporting needed from the ordinary people.  In Venezuela, the opposition always tries to make sure some darker faces appear among the opposition in their reporting of events.  There are some in the opposition, of course, but the overwhelming population of dark faces support Chávez and the darker faces are the majority here.

You write about Chávez that:  “His government never prosecuted a single coup plotter. Not a one was imprisoned, beaten or tortured, much less assassinated. All of those things have happened in Iran in a matter of hours.”  But Chávez was accused of being an assassin even hours before his own supporters were shot on the streets in 2002 and cameras were then used to back up that misinformation.  Since then he has been accused of all of those things you mentioned and you can add a multitude more of other accusations.

Living in Venezuela for the past twenty-four years and watching how the news has been and continues to be manipulated (even through YouTube, Facebook and Twitter) I am truly worried about whether I am really getting the story on Iran.  I am not ready to take sides.  It could be Venezuela, April 11, 2002, repeating itself.  Chávez, who was at the center of that event, supports Ahmadinejad.  That’s something to think about.

Charlie - As you know (as one who in a luncheonette in Caracas in 2002 urged you to write and publish your observations from Venezuela) I have the greatest of respect for you, a respect that allows for differences of opinion without losing an iota of that respect.

I also disagree with President Chavez on this one, and it is similarly a respectful disagreement.

And while some commenters here may "support Mousavi" I do not support any candidate or power broker up above in Iran. I support the people from below.

I am about to publish, here, an essay that I think will answer you more directly. It's about how this moment in history, for the international left, is one akin to that of the 1930s when it became clear that Mussolini and "that other guy" and their psuedo-left experiments had drifted into fascism, and how the international left became among the vanguards against them.

The response by the Iranian government on the streets this week, and in the attempted censorship of their communications, looks nothing like President Chavez's response to events in Venezuela at any moment. And the information we have available through YouTube demonstrates convincingly that the Iran revolt is not a "revolt of the spoiled brats," exclusive to the upper class, that occurred in Venezuela. The media from below - media like you and me - has demonstrated that conclusively.

Let not the scars of past and different circumstances blind us from the realities of the present. Iran 2009 resembles Venezuela 2002 in the inverse: the people in the streets are more akin to the brave Venezuelans who mobilized against the coup than they'll ever be to the esqualido opposition to Chavez. I'm prepared to spend as many weeks and months informing and convincing you and others like you of this point, and I am certain that the Iranian people will continue to make their just cause irresistible to authentic lovers of freedom and justice everywhere.

Stay tuned for my additional thoughts and observations.

Hey Charlie

I see you referred to me. I will clarify, I didn't really mean Mousavi, I have had the same reservations as you about the whole thing, and still hold reservations on Mousavi himself. I really should have said the people in Iran, because that is more in line with what I meant and think/thought (but I was using "Mousavi" to represent the upswell of protest, rather than the man himself). I am not carefull enough in my words, I am always causing slip-ups that I then have to go on and clarify/correct. Read my other posts on this thread here as to this further.  

hey Charlie

as usual I have done what I just said, I always make the silliest of mistakes. Re-checked what you were referring to exactly. 

where you are quoting from was a Tweet message from Iranians which was:

"As they are currently tweeting, " We have no national press coverage in Iran, everyone should help spread Mousavi's message. One Person = One Broadcaster. #IranElection""

Mousavi who had said (I can't remember where exactly now - it was either in a speech or online in text somewhere - but I did see the source myself) "one person = one broadcaster". So the tweet was in direct reference to that particular message from Mousavi. about enabling citizen messages to get out and spread. I understand your concern about the one-sided nature of those on the internet and you could read the same threat into that tweet being that only some people will spread some message that they want. However, with the media crackdown then I see it justified. again what Mousavi was probably referring to at that time he said/wrote that when the official media were being silenced. 

and again, I am shown to be incompetent, I really should check up on Everything that I thinking before I hit send. 

I double-checked for where that came from. and the entire tweet was from Mousavi's team. which was then spread around by others. I will have seen the original because I have his supposed twitter page as one that am I set to follow:

http://twitter.com/mousavi1388

When I posted the message, I was seeing it as the important message being "one person = one broadcaster"

which is inline with my thinking about education, which I am passionate about. and education can occur everywhere it doesn't have to be in a classroom or in a set mould or on the internet. so I liked the simplicity of that message in itself as it resonated with me.