Press TV
Press TV is an Iranian state-owned news media organisation, owned by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, that broadcasts in the English and French languages. The 24-hour channel, which has headquarters in Tehran, was launched on 8 July 2007 and was intended to compete with western English language services. Press TV has been described as an outlet for government propaganda.
Background and purpose
Iran's first international English-language TV channel was established in 1976. Later in 1997, Sahar TV was launched by IRIB, broadcasting in multiple languages including English.Press TV was created on 8 July 2007, for the purpose of presenting news, images and arguments, especially on Middle Eastern affairs, to counter the news coverage that appears on BBC World News, CNN International and Al Jazeera English. Press TV is state-funded and is a division of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, the only organisation legally able to transmit radio and television broadcasts inside Iran. Based in Tehran, it broadcasts to North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and parts of Africa and Latin America.
IRIB's head is appointed directly by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; according to The Guardian, it is close to the country's conservative political faction, especially the Revolutionary Guards.
Press TV CEO Mohammad Sarafraz said in a June 2007 press conference that, "Since September 11, Western bias has divided the media into two camps: those that favour their policies make up one group and the rest of the media are attached to radical Islamic groups like Al-Qaeda. We want to show that there is a different view. Iran, and the Shi'as in particular, have become a focal point of world propaganda. From the media point of view, we are trying to give a second eye to Western audiences."
By launching an English-language television network to promote an Iranian perspective of the world, together with an Arab-language station, the Al-Alam News Network, the Iranian government said it hoped "to address a global audience exposed to misinformation and mudslinging as regards the Islamic Republic of Iran." The two networks focus on "difficult issues in the Middle East such as the United States' occupation of neighbouring Iraq and the Shia question." According to mediachannel.org, "the government aims to use Press TV to counter what it sees as a steady stream of Western propaganda against Iran as well as offer an alternative view of world news".
Press TV began its activities in London during 2007. The network's website launched in late January 2007, and the channel itself on 2 July 2007. Roshan Muhammed Salih was Press TV's first London news editor and chief correspondent. In an article for The Guardian in July 2009, Salih wrote that Press TV was "willing to give a platform to legitimate actors whom the western media will not touch, such as Hamas and Hezbollah".
The BBC journalist Linda Pressly described Press TV as pro-Palestinian and opposed to sanctions against Iran in December 2011. At the time Press TV Ltd in London sold programmes to Iran, principally talk shows, while Tehran's Press TV International produced the majority of the news and documentaries.
As of 2009, the annual budget of Press TV is 250 billion rials. By then, the station was employing more than 400 throughout the world.
Controversies
Pro-Iranian government bias
Press TV promotes Iranian foreign policy and has been described as Iranian government propaganda.It has aired the coerced confessions of multiple prisoners, the basis for the revocation of its license to broadcast in the UK after such an incident. Press TV has disputed accusations made against it.
Press TV's news bulletins often feature Iranian ministers, diplomats or government officials, or guest commentators that express views consistent with the Iranian government's "message of the day". In 2012, commentator Douglas Murray wrote that the station was the "Iranian government's propaganda channel".
In a post-election "information offensive", reports the Associated Press, Press TV and Al-Alam have "churned out a blitz of policy statements, negotiating points and news breaks as the main soapboxes for Iran's public diplomacy."
In 2007, the Canadian weekly Maclean's, while observing that "most of Press TV's news reports are factually accurate," alleged that Press TV also publishes "intentional errors", citing a story on the Press TV website that contained the claim, based on "no evidence, that the Lebanese government is trying to convert the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp into an American military base."
In August 2009, Ofcom, the British broadcasting regulator, judged that two phone-in shows hosted by George Galloway on Press TV had broken its broadcasting code on impartiality in their coverage of the Gaza War by not including enough calls from pro-Israelis. Press TV said contributions to the show reflected the balance of opinion.
The Sunday Times journalist Eleanor Mills walked out before a Press TV interview in 2010 after discovering she was not being interviewed by Sky News, as she had falsely believed. While she was reassured on editorial independence from Tehran, Mills doubted she would be able to talk about torture in Iran or Neda Agha-Soltan, who was shot dead in the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests.
Antisemitism
Press TV has been accused by the UK's The Jewish Chronicle of broadcasting "the most disreputable of fringe causes", such as Holocaust denial, and of antisemitic conspiracy theories by the Anti-Defamation League.It was accused in December 2011 by British journalist Nick Cohen of functioning as "a platform for the full fascist conspiracy theory of supernatural Jewish power". He wrote that "If whites ran Press TV, one would have no difficulty in saying it was a neo-Nazi network". In 2009, Oliver Kamm in The Jewish Chronicle accused Press TV of having an "ability to insinuate into public debate the worst and most pernicious ideas around", including Holocaust denial. Cohen mentioned that the station featured "fascist ideologues such as Peter Rushton, the leader of the White Nationalist Party – an organisation that disproves the notion that the only thing further to the right of the BNP is the wall."
In a September 2009, Press TV picked up and republished an antisemitic conspiracy theory that was circulating in Algeria and Morocco, accusing Jews of a conspiracy to kidnap Algerian children and harvest their organs. Moroccan journalist Hassan Masiky criticized Press TV for trafficking in a dangerous "work of fantasy" that is a "nonsense, nightmarish tale".
In a May 2011 article reprinted on the website of Press TV, correspondent Mark Dankof wrote an article about how the prediction of the fabricated antisemitic text Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is "only partially true", and lauded Press TV as "one of the few exceptions to the Lobby's control" of the media.
In 2012, a report from the Anti-Defamation League alleged that Press TV had broadcast antisemitic conspiracy theories and opinions, including interviewing individuals such as the American conspiracy theorist David Duke who said on the station that Israel was involved in 9/11 and the Iraq War. He said: "The Zionists orchestrated and created this war in the media, the government, and international finance". The ADL reported in 2013 that in another appearance, Duke made "anti-Semitic allegations that are consistent with his record and typical of the views often espoused on Press TV". Mark Dankof has also backed claims on Press TV that 9/11 was an "Israeli Mossad inside operation from start to finish".
In early 2015, Press TV claimed Jews or Israel were responsible for the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris. In a 20 January 2015 article by Kevin Barrett on the station's website he claimed that "The Zionists created ISIL and sent it to fight Muslims and Christians in Syria and Iraq" while "New World Order Zionism is also targeting the USA for destruction". In a 17 February 2015 article for the website, Barrett claimed 9/11 was a "Zionist 'coup d'etat' to seize power in the country and launch a permanent war on Islam on behalf of Israel" and falsely claimed the 2011 attacks in Norway was the responsibility of a "team of Zionist-liked professional killers."
In early March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Press TV broadcast an item claiming "Zionist elements developed a deadlier strain of coronavirus against Iran" and a few days later claimed Israel was responsible for the virus.
Publication of Holocaust denial
On the subject of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an editorial on the Press TV website in 2008 noted, "On this anniversary, we all need to mull over the faking of history and the Greatest Lie Ever Told". In 2008, The Jerusalem Post and the British Searchlight magazine criticized Press TV for reprinting on its website an article entitled "The Walls of Auschwitz: A Review of the Chemical Studies" by the British Holocaust denier Nicholas Kollerstrom which was first published by the denial group, the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust. The document claims that the Auschwitz gas chambers were used for "benign" purposes only and said "the alleged massacre of Jewish people by gassing during World War II was scientifically impossible". Press TV described Kollerstrom, by then removed as an honorary fellow of University College London because of the article, as a "distinguished academic". Other Holocaust deniers to have appeared on the station include Michèle Renouf and Peter Rushton.In a 2014 article on the website, the Canadian writer Brandon Martinez described Auschwitz as having been an appealing place where Jews were able to participate in "cultural and leisure activities". He rejected the existence of gas chambers during the Holocaust and the use of Zyklon B for the mass killings of European Jews. To make his assertions, he drew on claims made by Holocaust deniers Mark Webber and David Irving.
In November 2013, the Press TV website reprinted an opinion piece in its 'Viewpoints' section, first written by M.I. Bhat for Veterans Today, although Bhat was a regular columnist for Press TV as well. The article blamed Jews for their fate in the Holocaust and accepted "the Nazi regime's anti-Jewish conspiracy theories as historical fact". Bhat queried whether American Jews were "incubating another Hitler".