{"id":1771855,"date":"2022-12-12T06:02:43","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T11:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1771855"},"modified":"2022-12-12T06:02:51","modified_gmt":"2022-12-12T11:02:51","slug":"corporate-journalists-need-to-stop-being-useful-idiots-for-authoritarian-regimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/corporate-journalists-need-to-stop-being-useful-idiots-for-authoritarian-regimes\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Journalists Need To Stop Being Useful Idiots For Authoritarian Regimes"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcorporate-journalists-need-to-stop-being-useful-idiots-for-authoritarian-regimes%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1771855&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The New York Times\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/12\/04\/world\/middleeast\/iran-morality-police.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">broke the n<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/12\/04\/world\/middleeast\/iran-morality-police.html\">ews<\/a>\u00a0last Sunday morning that the Iranian government abolished its notorious morality police, government agents who enforce a strict dress code based on the state\u2019s interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. They have become a universally condemned symbol of oppression after 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini died on Sept. 16 in Tehran after the \u201cmorality police\u201d arrested and beat her for not wearing her hijab \u201cproperly.\u201d Amini\u2019s death sparked nationwide protests that continue today. <\/p>\n<p>The Times celebrated Iran\u2019s abolishment of the morality police as an \u201capparent victory for feminists.\u201d Other corporate media, from The Wall Street Journal to CNBC, quickly repeated the Times\u2019 story. Margaret Brennan, host of CBS\u2019s \u201cFace the Nation,\u201d began her interview with the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/world\/full-transcript-secretary-of-state-antony-blinken-on-face-the-nation\/ar-AA14TwFj\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">saying<\/a>, \u201cI want to start with some breaking news overnight out of Iran, they have abolished the morality police.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Yet within minutes of the Times\u2019 reporting, human rights activists in Iran and the West denounced the Times story as false. U.S.-based Iranian activist Masih Alinejad\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AlinejadMasih\/status\/1599393507503841280\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">tweeted<\/a>, \u201cIt\u2019s disinformation that the Islamic Republic of Iran has abolished it\u2019s [<em>sic<\/em>] morality police. It\u2019s a tactic to stop the uprising.\u201d Another Iranian activist, Amin Pouria,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mamadporii\/status\/1599321131168673792\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">tweeted<\/a>, \u201cTo lift world\u2019s public opinion pressure, the IR changes [the] name of the \u2018Morality Police.\u2019 However, Iranian women &#038; girls are still beaten, imprisoned or killed like #MahsaAmini for mandatory dress code. Don\u2019t let the IR fool you with lies and be Iranian\u2019s voice.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Even Iran\u2019s government and state media have denied suspending the morality police. Iranian lawmaker and cleric Hossein Jalali\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IranIntl_En\/status\/1600097069632462849\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reportedly<\/a> said the morality police are here to stay, and \u201cthe Islamic Republic\u2019s crackdown on women not wearing proper hijab will continue with a range of measures that may include blocking their bank accounts.\u201d Kasra Aarabi, an analyst of the U.K.\u2019s Tony Blair Institute, called the Times\u2019 story \u201cfake news.\u201d He pointed out in his\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KasraAarabi\/status\/1599504327583809536\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">tweet<\/a>, \u201cThis disinfo was propagated today to distract media attention from the 3 days of major protests in #Iran which begin tomo. Why did mainstream media ignore this context?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It turned out the Times\u2019 report was based on a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2022\/12\/05\/iran-denies-abolition-of-morality-police-as-three-day-strike-begins.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">vague comment<\/a>\u00a0by Iran\u2019s Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri. When asked by reporters why people hadn\u2019t seen many \u201cmorality police\u201d on the streets, Montazeri replied, \u201cThe morality police had nothing to do with the judiciary, and the same institution that established it has now shut it down.\u201d The Times ran its story based on this comment while ignoring what Montazeri said: \u201cthe judiciary will continue to supervise social behaviors.\u201d After the pushback from Iranian human rights activists, some media began questioning or adding <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/6238973\/iran-morality-police-abolish-masha-amini-protests\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">context to the story<\/a>. Still, the Times has issued no correction or apology to its original report.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>How did Western corporate media such as the Times get the morality police story wrong? Corporate media today are less about reporting straight news than advocating narratives, and people who work at these outlets see themselves as activists more than traditional journalists. They search for and only report news that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Corporate journalists have a long history of telling lies that benefit authoritarian regimes to unsuspecting Westerners. This must stop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":536,"featured_media":1771858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[7965,6079,6919,7967,5313,7966],"class_list":["post-1771855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-authoritarian","tag-corporate","tag-federalist","tag-idiots","tag-journalists","tag-regimes"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/536"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1771855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1771858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1771855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1771855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1771855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}