This pattern of media ignorance followed by frenzy would repeat itself in the days and weeks following September 11, 2001, when Americans were suddenly overloaded with images of Saudi Arabians and Afghans after years of the news outlets ignoring the Middle East. The result is a woefully uneducated public, alternating between obliviousness and panic about a region critical to U.S. interests.
As Sick points out, Iran has done little to dispel its image as a land of intolerance and religious orthodoxy. Its current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made breathtakingly offensive comments about Jews, Israel, the United States, and the Western world. But, as illustrated by the hundreds of thousands of protestors who bravely took to the streets in the wake of the rigged June elections, Iran is a diverse nation, as much wrestling with itself as with the world. It is a tragedy that the American image of the country derives from a horrible but misrepresented event thirty years ago.
you don't mention that ted koppel is the face of the "... pattern of media ignorance followed by frenzy..."
the hostage event was his career achievement, it captured an audience that sustained his show for many years
#1 Posted by jamzo, CJR on Wed 4 Nov 2009 at 11:56 AM
The mere fact that even the CJR ignored the anniversary of the Vincennes shooting down of the Iran Air 655 in 1988 and the media lies that followed it, or the anniversay of the Iran-Iraq war in which the US (along with the media) were supportive or studiously silent on Saddam's atrocities and US backing, also shows that the "pattern of media ignorance" continues even here. We tend to celebrate anniversaries that suit us and forget the other events.
#2 Posted by hass, CJR on Thu 5 Nov 2009 at 11:07 AM
I find it depressing that this story quotes Gary Sick as an authority. Sick was the guy behind the 'October Suprise' hoax that was given a good ride by the mainstream media before finally being discredited in the early 1990s. You will recall that Sick pushed the notion that the incoming Reagan administration struck a deal with Iran to hold the hostages through the 1980 election. The theory depended on the word of highly unreliable sources, as so many sketchy/politicial charges do, and Sick was shown to have had his eye on a movie deal tie-in with none other than Oliver Stone. Yet here is Sick being quoted as if his word carries weight. (OK, Lyndon LaRouche did subscribe to Sick's theory, I'll grant.) Sick continues to get respectful treatment from MSM sources - who would never forgive someone from the conservative side of the political divide for conspiracy-mongering on such a slender evidentiary basis.
#3 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Mon 9 Nov 2009 at 12:06 PM