A Jewish Journalist's Exclusive Look Inside Iran

[Little Tich]

Source: The Jewish Daily Forward

Pasagardae, Iran —— In the heart of Fars Province on Iran’s high desert plateau in the South, a stark and bare large limestone tomb juts out of the landscape. It’s in the middle of nowhere. But the understated burial place of Cyrus the Great still draws Iranians on pilgrimage.

Mohammad Parvi, a retired sugarcane factory worker, told me he was there with his family on this pitilessly hot and shadeless July afternoon because he wished to pay homage to “our ancestor, the grandfather of all Iranians.”

Cyrus, way back in the sixth century BCE, he averred, “exported human rights to the other nations. He denounced slavery. He made people respect each other.”

Historians reject each of these claims. But many Iranians believe them, thanks in part to a relentless propaganda campaign conducted by the shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to legitimate his own rule as Cyrus’s heir in the early 1970s. And for the shah’s theocratic successors, that can sometimes be a concern.

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And so was I. My visit, coming after two years of seeking a journalist’s visa to report from Iran, represented something special: I was the first journalist from a Jewish, pro-Israel (if not always pro-Israel government) publication to be granted a journalist’s visa since the 1979 Revolution. Whether this was a reflection of increased openness by the government I cannot say. My visa came only after a former representative of Iran’s Jewish community in the country’s parliament wrote a letter on my behalf.

Read more: http://forward.com/news/318930/a-jewish-journalists-exclusive-look-inside-iran/#ixzz3ifZvrxud

Note: The Jewish Forward was finally allowed to report from inside Iran. An interesting read, indeed.

[shira]

1. This was all fixed. The Journalist admits he had an Iranian Fixer & Translator....

So everything the reporter was told was being carefully monitored, from the start.

It's like going into Gaza & expecting the people & government officials to say anything they wish, even against the ruling regime.



Yeah, right.

=====================

The scandal here is that the so-called "Journalist" wants his audience in the Forward to believe everything in this article is on the up-and-up. The NYT even rolled with this bullshit.

Sorry, we won't get fooled again:

[Little Tich]

2. I will cheerfully ignore your criticism as long as it's completely unfounded...

[shira]

3. "Though I had to work with a government fixer and translator..."

You really believe the civilians and government officials interviewed were free to say whatever they wanted against the regime?

Seriously?

[Little Tich]

4. Larry Cohler-Esses

Source: The Jewish Daily Forward

Larry Cohler-Esses is assistant managing editor with responsibility for news coverage. He joined the staff in December 2008. Previously, he served as Editor-at-Large for the Jewish Week, an investigative reporter for the New York Daily News, and as a staff writer for the Jewish Week as well as the Washington Jewish Week. Larry has written extensively on the Arab-Jewish relations both in the United States and the Middle East. He received several Laurels Awards from the Columbia Journalism Review, and two New York Press Association awards. Larry Cohler-Esses can be reached at [e-mail].

Read more: http://forward.com/author/larry-cohler-esses/

Larry Cohler-Esses was the journalist who went to Iran, and he doesn't seem at all gullible to me.

[shira]

6. Sorry, but closed regimes like Iran, N.Korea, etc... don't like dissent

The people don't want to get hurt or see their families hurt for saying the wrong thing.

I'm surprised you don't know this.

==============

The fact is Persian Jews living in America and Israel are free to say what they want about Iran. Persian Jews in Iran are another story altogether. They don't enjoy the same rights.

[Little Tich]

5. Why We Sent a Reporter to Iran

Source: The Jewish Daily Forward

n September 2013, the Forward’s Larry Cohler-Esses attended an 80-minute press conference called by the new president of Iran. Listening to Hassan Rouhani among a large gaggle of reporters just near the United Nations is not how Larry usually spends his work hours. As the assistant managing editor for news, Larry assigns and edits stories, and rarely leaves the office to do his own reporting.

But he was at the press conference that day for a reason. His deep interest in Iran dated back more than 35 years, to a time before the Islamic Republic became the great enemy of the United States and Israel, and he wanted to interview Rouhani, a reformer in office for just a few months, who was making his first address before the General Assembly.

The interview never happened. But his encounter that day with a press officer at Iran’s permanent mission to the U.N. eventually led to the groundbreaking story published in today’s Forward, the very first credentialed reporting from a member of the Jewish media since the Islamic Republic was founded in 1979.

The press officer that day encouraged Larry to apply for a visa — a request that was denied repeatedly. Larry’s office is right next to mine, and he’d occasionally let me know of his progress, or lack thereof, but honestly, it didn’t register.

Read more: http://forward.com/opinion/editorial/318947/we-sent-reporter-to-iran-editorial/

[shira]

7. Jan 2013: Iran intimidating BBC Journalists

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-21209792

[Little Tich]

9. The Iranian authorities harassing journalists isn't the same as those journalists being unable to be

unbiased in their reporting.

Perhaps you should try to to find faults in the OP instead that would point towards Larry Cohler-Esses being unable to do his job?

[shira]

10. Yeah, right. The same happens in Gaza with all journalists there....

From the article below (July 2015)

Hardliners, anxious to re-affirm their control over the domestic sphere in the face of the centrist Rouhani’s huge electoral win in 2013, have launched concerted crackdowns, jailing journalists, shuttering publications, blocking social media, and sentencing peaceful activists to long prison terms.

http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2015/07/peaceful-dissent-denied-equating-criticism-religious-sin/

This isn't really up for debate. Iran has a very serious problem with dissent. Same with Hamas in Gaza. There's simply no way to report fairly from those territories. The only reporting allowed is what the government allows.

[Little Tich]

11. Your argumentation is weaker than English tea.

There are journalists in Iran who report negatively about Iran's authorities all the time. Just because the authorities don't want Journalists to write negatively about them, doesn't mean that the journalists will comply. Just look at Israel where the authorities are harassing foreign news services like Al Jazeera - the truth comes out anyway...

[shira]

12. When you put Israel in the same category as Iran on press freedom....

...you've lost the argument.

[shira]

8. July 2015:Peaceful Dissent Denied in Iran by Equating Criticism of Government w/ Religious Sin

http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2015/07/peaceful-dissent-denied-equating-criticism-religious-sin/