PressEthic

An anonymous official in the British government, and then the Prime Minister Tony Blair has accused Iran of involvement in attacks on British troops in the south of Iraq. That is a news story worthy of coverage, especially given the current interest in Iran and its refusal to halt use of nuclear production facilities.

So while France, Germany, the US and many other nations are watching events closely in Tehran and the region, it seems that Iranian intelligence and other government personnel - according to the unnamed official it is the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps - have been handing weapons also used by terrorist organisations such as Hizbollah in Lebanon to Iraqi militias such as Moqtada Al-Sadr's Mehdi Army to use against British forces in Al Muthana and Al Basrah provinces of Iraq.

But Blair, if you read accounts of his accusation, stressed that he could not be sure that explosive devices used against British soldiers were of Iranian origin; his remarks came during a joint press conference with Jalal Talabani, the interim Iraqi President. All of the following sources; CNN, the BBC, Reuters, and even Fox News (admittedly using an AP wire) cover the story of Blair's accusations, which he admits are far from substantiated. Quite apart from the fact that unfounded allegations based on poor intelligence have been a problem for the UK and US in Iraq before, given the lack of WMDs found in the country, the other question of balanced coverage remains.

Why is there no mention of Tehran's accusations of UK involvement in bombings in the Iranian province of Khuzestan? Given that Iran is denying the accusations made by Blair, and this denial is deemed newsworthy, why are the same news sources not also showing that Britain is denying charges of meddling similarly levelled by the Iranian government? Is there some agenda they are following? Or do they not think the charges are credible and should therefore not be covered?

If they Iranian charges are not published because they are not credible, why are British charges about which the British Prime Minister confesses, "we can't be sure," suitable for publication?

Is this one-sided reporting by the western press? Let us consider Al-Jazeera's account and you see something very interesting, and rather unusual: the English version of their website offers both the so-called "British view" of the story - which is merely the BBC's webpage whose link is given earlier in this blog entry - but also gives the "Iranian view" of events, written in the online version of the Khaleej Times.

Al-Jazeera comes in for a lot of criticism in America for its alleged bias, but this example of providing two separate versions of a news story, with a reader vote asking, "Who is Lying?" is innovative and in my view far more balanced than that provided by British and US media sources. Al-Jazeera's only actual reporting of the story is this:

Britain accused Iran of being behind the attacks which have caused the deaths of all eight British soldiers in Iraq this year. But the Islamic republic strongly denied the allegations, saying that London’s “scandal in Iraq made it make up this lie”.

10/6/2005 10:00:00 AM GMT ( Iran )

A top UK official accused the Iranian Revolutionary Guards of being “in active collusion in the smuggling of weapons into Iraq”. But Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman insisted that Tehran was committed to ensuring a peaceful Iraq.

Which seems to be pretty two-sided right? Having to compare so many different sources to gain a balanced picture of events outside of your personal experience is typically the job of a historian. These days, it seems that the newsreading public, who often lack the time to do so, may have to carry out such comparisons if they are to make balanced judgements on events, since the media may not be providing the different sources or versions in their coverage. Perhaps more people in the UK and US might try reading Al-Jazeera online, to see these opposing points of view.