On July 5th, I was reading the digital version of the New York Times as I do every morning through their app and noted that its editors had chosen to place at the top of the first page the story written by Abdi Latif Dahir titled, “As Iran’s Patriarch is Mourned, Glimpses of a changing Tehran.” I had a few observations about that editorial placement decision and about the piece itself that I passed onto the outlet’s editors, but sadly I never heard back from them.
First, it was disappointing that on July 5th, the day after our country celebrated its 250th anniversary, the New York Times chose to make Dahir’s piece their first story, versus reporting anything about the 250th anniversary of our unique democracy. Putting aside all the claims of lack of patriotism and lack of love for our country that could be made, the outlet clearly helped to spread the PR and media strategy of the state of Iran, a media strategy that has been used to discredit the U.S. and other Western societies for many decades, even while the West has created a better quality of life for their people than that of the brutal authoritarian state of Iran.
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Was it not lost on the New York Times that the scheduling of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s memorial on top of our 250th July 4th celebration was part of their overall media strategy?
Surely, Iran’s leadership could have found another time for the memorial during the over four months since their ruler’s death. I am sure the architects of the Iranian state PR and media campaign against the West were celebrating when they saw the article above all the articles having to do with the 250 years of U.S. independence. Unfortunately, the outlet’s editorial placement choice significantly increased the effectiveness and reach of their propaganda. It reminded me of some of the themes discussed by Judge Roy Altman in his book Israel on Trial about how the haters of the West have used media to discredit the virtues of democratic capitalistic societies.
Second, I commend the New York Times for their forethought and Dahir’s bravery to be on the ground in Tehran during the ceremony for the dead Iranian leader. When I saw the headline, I was hopeful that the piece would be about the struggles of the Iranian people, especially women, under the Ayatollah’s brutal authoritarian regime and how there were many Iranians attending the ceremony under fear of persecution if they didn’t. Unfortunately, the piece was soft on all the heartbreaking historical context.
The story dealt with all this unfavorable history with one comment from a woman who made an ambiguous statement, “I am afraid I won’t be able to say what is in my heart.” The piece contained no outrage or condemnation for the brutal leader Khamenei had been, including the slaughter of tens of thousands of Iranians during the social uprising only months before his death. Could this lack of context mean that the Iranian government had some sort of explicit or implicit control over Dahir’s editorial freedom? The article started with somewhat of a disclaimer that described the tight control over Dahir’s movements, who he could and could not talk to and that he was always surrounded by Iranian government officials.
Given the number of its citizens the Iranian government had slaughtered only a few months before and the presence of the Iranian government handlers, including an interpreter, it is not surprising that there was not more reporting about the continued unrest of the Iranian people towards their authoritarian leaders. Given all of this, the credibility of the whole piece should be called into question, or at least there should have been more context and qualifiers articulated.
Third, the tone of the article seemed to echo the reoccurring tendency in journalism to reduce many stories about the Middle East to an over-simplified binary choice between the oppressors and those they oppress. While the article never explicitly stated it, its lack of condemnation of Khamenei’s brutality towards his people, and the overall solemn tone that usually accompanies an article about a funeral seemed to put the dead Iranian leader into the oppressed box and the U.S. and Israel into the oppressor box. When in fact, Khamenei should have been clearly described as the oppressor and the Iranian people as the oppressed.
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Also, the choice of the word “slain” under the article’s lead-in picture that showed pictures of Iranians under images of the Ayatollah as a younger man was also inappropriate. “Slain” is a word that is usually reserved to describe the assassination of a great leader, and thus it implies that Khamenei was a great leader that was assassinated by the U.S. and Israel. This choice of words and lack of context about how Khamenei oppressed his people for so many years and proclaimed death to Israel and America did what social media does so effectively and dangerously when its algorithms push people further in the direction of their already held beliefs, activating their impulse to place blame, or worse, act in dangerous ways.
Lastly, on the day when the U.S. was celebrating its own independence from the oppression of the English monarchy, I wish the article would have ended with some sort of reference to how great it would be if the people of Iran could free themselves from the nearly 50 years of oppression they have endured under their authoritarian leaders. That kind of conclusion may have helped expand the outlet’s readership to a more centrist demographic like me. Sadly, the placement and contents of this article have me questioning why I continue to read the New York Times cover-to-cover each day.
Kurt Hall is an ex-media executive (cinema and advertising) who is a father to a 21-year-old daughter and has spent his retirement as an outdoorsman, substitute teacher, and director at media and tech-related corporations and not-for-profits focused on education.
