The Shot Not Heard By Donnel Jones, June 17, 2003	Home   Search   Forum   Terms

Not everyone is a media hound. Not everyone enjoys keeping up with world events. Still, when big news hits everyone watches and wonders. Who would deny that big news is everyone's news? Why would the most important event occurring in the world be treated, at best, as another occasional headliner? Makes no sense, right? Well, then, why is news from Iran today not making daily headlines?

Why is the Iranian people's revolt against their oppressive theocratic regime not enough to put other items, including Bush's road-map, on the back burner? You would think the quest for freedom by a people, in this case the Iranian people, would galvanize American press coverage as few other events can.

Is it because of the liberal media bias? Perhaps. But FoxNews itself, the cable channel that is part of Eric Alterman's right-wing media conspiracy, seems more interested in creating a melodrama out of Scott Peterson's trial than giving full coverage to potentially revolutionary events in Iran.

Yet conservative publications like the Wall Street Journal and National Review have focused much more on the plight and struggle of the Iranian people than the New York Times and CNN. Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit points out how other bloggers have noticed that a partisan divide has opened quietly over Iran's current crisis. Reynolds, in the same blog, also mentions Andrew Sullivan's invitation that there be a big blog blowout on July 9th, the one-year anniversary of Iranian pro-democracy demonstrations.

The divide opens quietly because liberal-leaning blogs have either ignored Iran or are taking to task other likeminded bloggers for ignoring it. At the very least, an eerie silence descends over the air waves and print which should otherwise be crackling with the anxious fire of momentous possibility for revolution in the most momentous part of the globe.

You would think leftists and liberals would voice their interest in, and support of, the Iranian people's struggle against their right-wing oppressors. Despite the left wing's hatred for things American, doesn't the Iranian struggle make a great Hollywood script? The story is replete with all the right ingredients for a huge box office hit: there are villains and heroes, the oppressor and the oppressed, an all-or-nothing plot, great courage in the face of danger, cowardice, nobility of spirit, brutality, endurance against the odds, riveting scenes of violence, societal transformation, and the whole thing entirely unpredictable except for the happy ending. Let us pray for a happy ending!

But the media barometer remains fairly static about Iran. That is, coverage of Iran doesn't even rise to the level of media exploitation. Maybe just as well for that would invite more liberal cynicism. Their silence and indifference is enough to peg them as missing history's bus yet again.