Wednesday, January 05, 2011

PressTV: Unbelievable (Literally)

Some serious people in the West take the Iranian news organization PressTV as a reliable source of information about the Middle East. Though it is funded by the Iranian government, they claim it is totally editorially independent. Is it?

Would any serious organization blame Israel's Mossad spy agency for the attack on a Coptic Christian church in Cairo, Egypt? Would any serious organization publish an article where the main argument supporting this claim would be that Muslims never attack Christians, that "it goes without saying that no Muslim, whatever their political leanings may be, will ever commit such an inhumane act"? This is an obvious falsehood, with plenty of evidence of previous Muslim violence against Christians and other groups.


The claim that Mossad did this, because it can't be Muslims who did it, is what PressTV is running with. The same article pretty much blames Israel and the United States for every internal problem in the Middle East, from Sudan to Lebanon. There's a disclaimer that this opinion piece is not the opinion of PressTV, but what kind of organization publishes crazy conspiracy theories in its opinion section? Publishing this may not be a full endorsement, but it reflects the thought that it is a valid view.

2 comments:

  1. You seem to forget that while Press TV is definitely prone to bouts of conspiracy theory, the country it represents was the victim of an ALL TOO REAL conspiracy and resulting coup by the CIA/Britain.

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  2. Just because some (very few) conspiracies are real doesn't mean every conspiracy theory should be published, especially when it is clearly false.

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