Iran's satellite launch, refusal of Visas to americans and the western world's reaction

This week Iran made news. And news for all the wrong reasons. On February 3, the media across the world reported the launch of a home-made satellite by Iran. According to BBC, "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the launch had been successful and that with it Iran had "officially achieved a presence in space". The satellite, carried on a Safir-2 rocket, was meant for telecommunication and research purposes, state TV said. A US state department official said the launch was of "great concern" and could lead to ballistic missile development. Iran insists its intent is peaceful".

The biggest concern is that Iran will use this technology to deliver arms and it will not be used for 'peaceful' purposes as Iran claims. The usual back and forth about the western double standards went on between the foreign ministers of UK, US, Iran.

The newspapers today carried news of Iran's refusal of visas to the USA women's badminton team. The reason given for it is that their papers were not submitted on time. The head of the delegation said that the papers were submitted on time, but they were not granted visas anyway.

While the concern that Iran may deploy the technology to intimidate others and non-peaceful purposes is genuine, the coverage of the issue was slightly skewed. While President Ahmadinejad seems to have a sense of theatrical performance, timing the launch with the anniversary of the Iranian revolution; what cannot be denied is that the media tend to cover issues related to Iran with a lot of bias and pre-judgment.

The Iranian revolution which de-throned the Shah, the Iran nuclear program, refusal of visas to westerners tend to take on larger than life proportions. The media tends to focus on Iran as the 'other', an evil force that needs to be closely monitored and scrutinised.

Why doesnt the media carry stories of the thousands and thousands of Iranians who are denied US visas ? Why this lop-sided perversion of reality? There is a deliberate attempt to paint certain countries in a certain light and this bias seems almost unconscious. The same propaganda happened with Saddam Hussein before Iraq was bombed out of existence. The media seems to have all but forgotten about the Nuclear program and WMDs' that Saddam had after the western leaders acknowledged that it was a big fat lie.

Fair, honest reporting demands that each issue be examined closely before reaching any conclusion and definitely demands that opinion be kept out from facts. There seems to be an easy blending of both facts, opinion when it comes to reporting on Iran. The same holds true for any country that has challenged the US hegemony. One is reminded of Edward Said 's "Covering Islam", which brilliantly captures the trends in reporting on Islam and muslim countries.


While it is a fact that Iran is still on the list of suspect countries which is developing a nuclear program, it should not deter the media and responsible spokespersons from reporting accurately and stop interspersing the facts with their own per-conceived notions ( which are usually handed down ) either from the establishment they work for, or their superiors.

I hope that the global media start seeing this pattern of their own mistakes and correct themselves to the extent of merging facts with fiction.