Cannonfire

Thursday, June 25, 2009

The new Jeff Gannon is a tweety-pie on Iran

Remember Media Whores Online, the pioneer online left-wing web journal? It was an oasis of sanity at a time when the right threatened to commandeer the internet, just as it had taken over talk radio.

Well, now HuffPo editor Nico Pitney has proven that the left can be just as whorish. That's right: We have a new Jeff Gannon! Maybe we should start a "kneepads for Nico" fund...?

From the Atlantic:

What makes the Pitney-Obama exchange different is that the White House seems to have called Pitney and told him that they might call on him for an Iran question because of his yeoman's work aggregating Tweets and blogs from Iran. But since Pitney didn't tell the White House what question it was, I don't think there was any untoward coordination.

Hmm. But the NYT hints at the trouble with that picture...

Mr. Pitney has been live-blogging the fallout from the Iranian elections, sifting through Twitter feeds and other available observations and reports for news about the situation for several days. As our own staff knows at The Times, this has been an arduous task, partly because some reality is ungettable, some reports are questionable and others are downright fictitious.

Just how reliable are these tweets? NPR:

It's impossible to know even if what you're reading was actually written by people in Tehran or elsewhere in Iran, especially since there's a movement for as many people in the Twittersphere to use the Iranian capital as their location a là "I'm Spartacus" to make it harder for Iranian censors to stop tweets that are actually from Iran.

True/Slant:

Here are a few of the things that we’ve “learned” the last few days about the Iranian elections and their aftermath:

— 3 million people protested Monday in Tehran
— the losing candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, was put under house arrest
— the president of the election monitoring committee declared the election invalid on Saturday

These are just a handful of data points that have been shooting around the Internet, via Twitter or the opposition-friendly blogs. And all have been instrumental in building a public opinion case against the Iranian government for undercounting the support for Mousavi.

The problem is, none of them appear any longer to be true. The crowd was in the hundreds of thousands, most newspapers reported. Mousavi’s own wife said he wasn’t under house arrest Sunday, and Monday he appeared in person at the protest. And if the president of the election monitoring commission has gone over to the opposition, no serious reporter has reported it.

Also see here, if you dare. And here and here.

The operative phrase, I believe, is "catapulting the propaganda." Many have excused Nico's bent-knee performance on the grounds that Obama did not know the specific question ahead of time. Look closer.The people who feel satisfied by that explanation are, you should pardon the expression, twits.

posted: 2:19 PM

7 COMMENTS - CLICK HERE

Comments:

Potemkin press corps?

posted by

myiq2xu : 2:49 PM

"The theocratic Iranian regime cannot be allowed to pursue nuclear weapons. They must be stopped for the good of the Iranian people and for the good of the world. This is why we need to bomb their nuclear installations. Some innocents may die but it is for the greater good."

I'm just guessing here. How far wrong do you think I will be?

Harry

posted by

Anonymous : 3:07 PM

On top of various middling sums of money in the $20 to $40 millions previously announced for propaganda efforts such as an Voice of America-type broadcast in Farsi,an additional $400 million in funding for destabilizing Iran was set in motion a couple of years back.

Among its stated projects was setting up a communication grid that would exist apart from the traditional communications, which the Iranian regime would surely block.

So now we see the fruits of this funding, along with the full media hyping of these fruits, while ignoring or discounting the many problems with the conventional story line.

Do not look for US media to accurately report anything having to do with the most fervent wishes of Israel (and regime change in Iran is one such wish list topper).

Why let inconvenient facts intrude in an otherwise efficacious campaign?

XI

posted by

Anonymous : 4:13 PM

In case you're unaware, there are also allegations of Israelis being involved in a dis-information campaign via Twitter feeds. While I wouldn't advocate the viewpoint of a massive Jewish-Zionist conspiracy, scanning the link below gives me the IMPRESSION that the writer has done some homework - and to further quality my input, I wouldn't see this as any World-Jewry conspiracy but rather a few Israeli hacks jumping on the bandwagon as an "assist" in "catapulting the propaganda" - found via Xymphora (yeah, I know...)...

http://www.chartingstocks.net/2009/06/proof-israeli-effort-to-destabilize-iran-via-twitter/

It just throws another question into the mix, re: "How much is the media managing our perceptions?"

posted by

Hoarseface : 4:49 PM

Excellent article, Joseph. Excellent links.

Found on chartingstocks comment board: 2 interesting links

Israel's newest PR weapon The Internet Megaphone , Jerusalem Post:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378505678&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

and "The Megaphone" page itself:

http://giyus.org/

also this bit: “[David Saranga] said on Tuesday that Twitter, the short messaging website, has revolutionized Israeli diplomacy and become a leading advocacy apparatus.”

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1093614.html

Joseph, you probably are aware of the megaphone strategy, and possibly have mentioned such before, which I missed.

This was first time to see it! If it is redundant, I apologize.

posted by

Just Me : 7:04 PM

Alas, sigh, yes...I remember the late great mediawhoresonline.

Oh, and Hoarseface? Thanks for the heads up.

I see the conspiracynut anti-Semites are now using the word "Israelis" to distance themselves from "Zionist" which has been thoroughly outed as a code word for deniers and such.

Yes, "a few Israelis" covers your ass, hm? So please explain 1. what is the significance, since you spent so much time qualifying how you weren't a Jews-rule-the-World nut, of even bringing this up, and 2. even if it were true, which is not shown except for your...word... and if it were only a "few" that would indicate insignificance, so what, exactly is your point?

OMFG!!!!!! the scary, scary JEWS are somehow involved!!!! Yet again!!!!!

Nice fucking try.

But I see now you were just responding to XI's lame "US a slave to Israel because the JEWS RULE THE WORLD" bullshit.

posted by

Zee : 2:29 AM

Zee, I never said that, and I don't agree with the causation syllogism you ascribe to me, which strikes me as backwards.

Consider the Gaza attacks Israel engaged in, to the condemnation of the world. The US Congress voted 404-1 to support the Gaza attacks (although 23 were either absent or voted present).

Secretary of State Rice and the Bush administration blocked the UN effort to create a ceasefire for several weeks, to allow Israel to finish their strategic attacks. And, of course, the US has used its veto power in the UN Security Council as often the only vote (but a deciding one) for Israel in the UN SC, many dozens of times.

XI

posted by

Anonymous : 11:45 AM