Iran's poison pens

Iran's television and radio outlets, under the jurisdiction of the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have remained staunch defenders of perceived Islamic orthodoxy in recent years. The website of the country's recently launched English-language satellite television channel, Press TV, looks as though it is set to take an even stronger stance. 

Press TV claims to counter what Iran perceives as the West's hegemony on news coverage and serve as a podium for freedom seekers and Muslims of the world. A salutary stated mission, but the Press TV Web site takes a forthrightly partisan approach in practice, lifting stories from news agencies such as Associated Press and Reuters and topping and tailing them with anti-West rhetoric. For example, a story about the Israeli army sentencing soldiers to brief jail terms is headlined "Mutinous Zionist soldiers imprisoned." Another section of the site entitled 'Reflections' offers essays on contentious issues, combining demagogic editorials with apocryphal statistics.

It is unclear if all this invective is written in Tehran. Press TV belongs to Iran's state broadcasting company, the only body in the country authorised to operate radio and television channels. It reportedly has 30 correspondents around the world, including Washington, New York and the Gaza Strip. There are no figures available for how much has been invested in the project, although an ex-BBC employee has reportedly provided training to other journalists. It may be no coincidence that the homepage and font of Press TV is strikingly similar to the design of the BBC News site.

The most well known face at Press TV's London bureau is Yvonne Ridley, the former Sunday Express journalist who converted to Islam after being captured by the Taliban in 2001. Ridley says she has not experienced any editorial interference so far, claiming she dislikes working for news outlets that peddle propaganda. However, Iran's media still lacks freedom. Reporters Without Borders ranks Iran's press situation as "very serious", the worst ranking on their five-point scale. Iran's internet censorship policy is labeled "pervasive" by the OpenNet Initiative's global Internet filtering map, also the worst ranking available.

There is certainly a thirst for an "alternative point of view." Al-Jazeera's English-language channel has brought a new perspective to new audiences, and in July, Mohammad Sarafraz, the deputy head of Iran's broadcasting company in charge of foreign channels, said that more than 3 million people, half of them from the United States, have visited Press TV's Web site over the past six months. What is unclear is whether they are visiting the site to seek objectively reported news or to satisfy their curiosity.