The western mass media’s coverage of Iran just gets worse and worse.

Don’t the Hollywood clowns even know how to lie anymore?

The L.A Times, June 16th 2009: Why is the President waving at 'anti-Government protestors'?

Hat-tip to Whatreallyhappened Com

UPDATE: June 22nd

The BBC gets some feisty responses from viewers to its explanation about using a similar photo – see What really happened on the BBC Editors Blog.

I especially liked this comment (links and emphasis added):

malleestump wrote:

Very gracious of the BBC no doubt, thank God for the internet and sites like ‘whatreallyhappened.com‘ being a site I peruse daily.

Now people, have a look at Mike Rudin‘s story and the comments (esp from abour 3,000 on)in the editor’s blog called “Caught up in a conspiracy” and see how the BBC is refusing to update The Rudin ‘Conspiracy File‘ programs on 9/11.

For example, the BBC will not report on the recent paper of 4th April 2009 by Niels Harrit and 8 other scientists on the confirmation of ther finding of nano-thermitic residue in the twin towers dust. Why not BBC? the Danes have put Niels Harrit on TV to explain the findings of the militarised explosives.Why should the Danes be more informed than the British in relation to the mass murders on 9/11?

The BBC will not/has not update/d their “No Mystery” program citing official investigators explaining that the No 7 building fell down due to ‘thermal expansion’. But the BBC will not report on the concession by those official people that building No 7 fell down with 2.25 seconds of freefall for the equivalent distance of about 8 stories. That simply means that the underlying building structure had to be instantaneously and simultaneously removed. I suppose that was done by pixies eh, BBC? No! Try explosives. That certainly demonstrates that the ‘thermal expansion’ explanation is nonsense, as is the whole of the Bush believers Conspircay theory that 19 Arabs did 9/11‘

The BBC has many more corrections to publish before it can be relied upon as a ‘news’ source.

In the meantime people, look elsewhere for reliable information.

Check out the 2009 NewMatilda.com Political Cartooning Competition as it approaches the final round. Australia has some talented cartoonists.

I especially like a runner-up in Heat 10 by freelancer Jon Kudelka.

It’s a nice follow-up to the notorious Doonsebury moneychangers cartoon.

'The Evolution of the Parasite'

Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald: a rare gem

Glenn Greenwald, an American journalist who deserves serious respect for cutting edge reporting, has a thoughtful piece in Salon.com with the self-explanatory title: The “Bomb Iran” contingent’s newfound concern for The Iranian People.

Glenn’s article begins:

I’m going to leave the debate about whether Iran’s election was “stolen” and the domestic implications within Iran to people who actually know what they’re talking about (which is a very small subset of the class purporting to possess such knowledge).

He’s right of course. What the hell do any of us know about what’s really going on in Iran – a country which, in my case at any rate, is half a world away?

Even so, the humble blogger can serve a useful purpose, it seems to me – if only to point out what’s missing (or almost missing) in the mainstream media narrative.

Over the last day, protests have continued in Iran. There have been sizeable demonstrations – for and against President Ahmadinejad. Fortunately, there appears to have been no repeat of the violence on Sunday evening that cost several lives.

While protestors, it appears, remain free to protest, western correspondents been confined to the luxury hotels where they spend most of their time anyway. Naturally, this is widely-reported as an outrage by the war-pimps of Fox News, CNN, the BCC and Australia’s own conformist media.

I support unrestrained, honest reporting – whether in Tehran or Timbuktu. But there’s a limit to the hypocrisy I can stomach, even from this distant perch.

The voice of protest in Georgia, not so loud in the western media

If the western media in that region have time on their hands and a thirst for covering anti-government protests, why don’t they head over to Tbilisi’? In Georgia, anti-government protestors have been toughing it out with western-backed government forces for two months.. and counting.

Georgian anti-government protestors said, when this round of protests began in mid-April, that they won’t give up until the government of CIA-stooge Mikael Saakashvili, who climbed to power on the back of a Soros-sponsored ‘Rose Revolution’ that overthrew an elected President, has finally gone.

To date, this ongoing drama has been little reported in the ‘free world’. Westerners who noticed it must have been paying exceptionally close attention to world events. Quite a contrast with Iran, whose post-election protests continue to attract 24×7 coverage!

To paraphrase the author of Animal Farm, all anti-government protests are of equal news value…. but some are more equal than others. See:

• Police in Georgia beat opposition protesters (Reuters – June 15th 2009)
• Thousands attend Georgia protest (BBC – May 26th 2009)
• Georgia protests enter fifth day (BBC – April 13th 2009)