Establishment control of the media in Iran is echoed on PEI Canada where media also disparage protest
Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, June 23, 2009 with story from CNN
CNN reports on alleged confessions of “I was a spy for the CIA”. The official Iranian media are sanitizing the election protests as foreign intervention. Unidentified first person accounts recall how the grenades were carried to protests, protesters provoked police and were encouraged by reporters.
All countries try to control media reports of protests but these seem more preposterous than most. If the protesters are or were armed, we wonder why civil war has not broken out. The protesters are taking beatings, being shot and otherwise physically attacked on video with only minor retaliation such as stone throwing. If they had grenades, we’re fairly sure they would have been provoked to use them.
In Canada for example during the G7 conferences, the media paints protesters as trouble makers. The PEI media have consistently portrayed anyone who protests as a loser, troublesome and of no consequence. The government funded media in Canada is the CBC. They negatively portrayed a protester who was assaulted by an elected MLA CBC slams protester in Mike Currie story. When we criticized the Charlottetown Guardian for slanting the news covering the Rob MacEachern same story in How bad can the reporting at the Guardian get ?, they sent us a threatening lawyer’s letter claiming we hurt their itty-bitty feelings.
The traditional media is part of the establishment which is one of the reasons people are getting the news from the Internet as an alternate source. Iran, Canada, PEI – control of the news by the establishment has been the only game in town for too long.
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