The Naive IR Liars
March 18th, 2007
Apparently, the Islamic Republic is still living in the era when you could deny what you had said formerly.
The story began with a sentence in the AP’s translation of Ahmadinejad’s speech in Ardakan, Yazd Province. AP carried the sentence “If all of you gather and also invite your ancestors from hell, you will not be able to stop the Iranian nation.” Although, these words quite perfectly match Ahmadinejad’s vocabulary, when I failed to find the sentence in the official Persian sources, I contacted the AP and asked them what their source had been. They responded, rather quickly, that the sentence does exist in the text published by IRNA, the Islamic Republic News Agency. I did a more extensive research on it and again failed to find any trace of the sentence anywhere, except for a Persian blog which did not indicate its source. So I asked the AP to send me their link.
Now, thanks to my friend Shimbalkhan, a rather meaningless name in Persian, we actually found out that the official newspaper of the government, Iran, published the speech and it did include the rather rude sentence. Thus, to this point, the conclusion is that AP did not make any mistake in the translation and that the IR, rather naively, tried to cover up Ahmadinejad’s remarks. It is interesting to know that the sentence is in fact printed on the front page (pdf).
Guys, this is the year 2007. I guess Khomeini and others did manage to change their words and deny what they had said, but, fortunately, your words are archived forever.
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Like I said a few posts back…the guy is a moron and does nothing but promote a sterotypically bad image of Iranians.
This is with someone firmly in control, imagine the confusing messages we will be getting from Iran during the power struggle that’s coming when Khamenei dies.
Boy who cried wolf…
So far almost all the crap that I see on the media about Iran are false and there is absolutely no evidence to back up any of their claims.
Soon people will completely ignore anything, even if it’s the truth that is being reported by the media…
A poll was conducted in Canada to see who the people trust the most, journalists are in a near tie with lawyers. You know journalism is fucked when you are competing with lawyers. Similer polls in the developing countries put journalists on the top.
Jina, What does your comment mean? I live in Iran and think that the print media is actually kind of fair to Iran. That does not mean that there have not been errors, but that is just as much the fault of this country and its policies than anything else.
They do not speak openly or honestly with the press. They restrict their access and movements. So what lies are you talking about exactly?
And I live in Canada and most people don’t read news, they watch it on TV. TV tells me that Iranians are blood thirsty Islamic fundamentalists who wants to blow up us up. It says that they will give their nukes when they get it to Usama and the gang. TV told me similar things before Iraq war about Iraq. People in the American bought it, so did many in Canada. Americans and Canadians are ones again buying the crap the media is telling them about Iran.
When I point out the mistakes the media made, they call me an Islamic fundamentalists… you know… being brown and correcting them equates to me being a Muslim fundamentalist in their views. I wonder where they got that from.
Just because the government limits their access doesn’t mean they have to make up stories.
Jina, when a government limits access to people and resources that can provide alternate stories or even truer stories, they pay the consequences. Those consequences are that there ARE alternative voices willing to speak and provide information. Those voices may not be fair and may have agendas, but they are talking and going on record.
This is a side effect of limiting press freedoms and freedom of speech,
I don’t get my information from the IR, I get them from these alternative sources also. Oddly enough, the alternative sources the mainstream media use, for most part, turns out to be lies or gross exaggeration of a truth, while the information I get seem to make sense. No, I don’t get my information from pro-mullah bloggers. Most are pro-democracy, pro-liberalization, pro-secular bloggers.
The truth is, mainstream media has an agenda. In America, it’s aligning themselves with the government to appear all patriotic. Little research regarding a topic they report on google will reveal all the bullshit they are spouting. If the media wants to get information about Iran, they can easily get it. Just read few bloggers from Iran. Make the bloggers and cross reference the story and confirm the authenticity like how ANY journalist should do before airing it. Also get a few translators to translate the material and they won’t make the blunder. Like how CNN got banned form Iran for a while when they reported Ahmadinejad ’s speech regarding Iran nuclear program’s intentions. Or how they mistranslated the Israel being whipped off of the earth speech.
People on ths part of the world are just stupid. You just need to give hints and they will put together crap based on their already racist views.
Jina, The “mistranslation” of Ahmadinejad’s famous speech originated in Iran. It was the official Iranian translation of Ahmadinejad’s speech that included the words about the map and wiping Israel off it. “Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine.” While the interpretation of those remarks has been debated in Iran, the translation has not.
The regime in Iran itself is often responsible for the image that gets presented in the west. They control the image that is sent out.
Plus it is very difficult to cross-check what bloggers say when the whole reason that bloggers can say what they do is anonymity.
And of course I know that tv news is entertainment and has an agenda… But don’t forget that the regime here has an agenda too.
Which, of course, does not excuse the western media (particularly tv).