An exchange with Reuters editors
Stories about Iran’s nuclear programme are routinely framed to adopt aggressive U.S. assumptions as background facts.
Contradictory information is frequently omitted, or just sourced to the Iranian government, not the Western analysts and institutions who corroborate its assertions.
Alarmed by these tendencies, I wrote to senior editors at Reuters and asked them to issue guidelines for future coverage.
The subsequent ruling (attached below) makes an assumption about Iran’s energy requirements that a Reuters story contradicts:
Iran may need nuclear power: study
By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Iran’s claim to need nuclear power may be genuine, given that it could run out of oil to export as soon as eight years from now, according to an analysis published on Tuesday by the National Academy of Sciences.
Needless to say, this sort of context is not recycled regularly.
In fact, I’ve not seen it mentioned since it popped up on Boxing Day for consignment to the memory hole.
From: Daniel Simpson
Sent: Fri 2006-04-28 10:35
To: Paul Holmes
Subject: Iran coverageDear Paul,
Bearing in mind the reporting of the push for war in Iraq, I think Reuters ought to be doing a better job of clarifying basic background facts about the escalating confrontation with Iran.
