Accuracy in Media
AIM Special Report
As the year draws to a close, we like to highlight some of the American media’s worst abuses that occurred during the past year. We have picked 10 stories for which there were general narratives presented by the mainstream media—narratives that ignored the larger truths to be gleaned from these stories. In other cases, the media missed the story altogether. We easily could have picked many more that meet those criteria, but arbitrarily chose to look at 10, in no particular order.
- The Fake Iran Agreement
- Global Warming Deal
- Obamacare’s Ongoing Failures
- Ignoring Benghazi Revelations
- Blame Gun Control Laws or the Attacker?
- The Islamic State
- Obama’s Cybersecurity Failures
- Vetting Hillary Clinton
- Skewed GOP Primaries
- Securing our Skies
1. The Fake Iran Agreement
In July the mainstream media celebrated a deal between Iran and the P5+1 that would provide Iran with sanctions relief along with virtually no accountability. Today, the administration, along with their lapdogs in the press, continues to argue that this somehow adds up to a good deal for the world.
It doesn’t. In fact, there really is no deal at all. The New York Times and other news organizations still call this a “signed” deal. It isn’t. Julia Frifield, the State Department Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, wrote in a November 19 letter to Republican Representative Mike Pompeo (KS) that “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document.” She added that “The success of the JCPOA will depend not on whether it is legally binding or signed, but rather on the extensive verification measures we have put in place, as well as Iran’s understanding that we have the capacity to re-impose—and ramp up—our sanctions if Iran does not meet its commitments.”
Such farcical arguments expose the deal as a sham. Case in point: in both October and November Iran tested a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, in violation of United Nations resolutions. In addition, Iran was asked by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to provide its own samples from theParchin military site. CNN portrayed the IAEA’s inspection of Parchin as alandmark victory, although the inspectors entered an empty facility containing no equipment. The fact is that this deal, for all intents and purposes, can be interpreted by the Iranians as whatever they want it to be.
In a December 28 article, The New York Times cited an Iranian shipment of low-enriched uranium to Russia as “one of the biggest achievements in [President Obama’s] foreign policy record…” As we demonstrated in a recent article, this “achievement” is, in fact, a dangerous hoax in which the Obama administration and the Iranian mullahs are equally invested.
Here is what the December 28 Times article says: “Iran is still disassembling centrifuges, which enrich uranium, and disabling a plutonium reactor, among other steps that are required under the nuclear agreement struck in July.”
Besides the fact that no deal was “struck,” meaning signed, this is what the Iranian foreign minister said about those two issues, from a recent New Yorker magazine interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif that I linked to in my recent article:
NEW YORKER: Where does the Iran nuclear deal stand? What is your timetable to complete steps pledged in dismantling part of the program?
IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER MOHAMMAD JAVAD ZARIF: We’re not dismantling anything. We are uninstalling some centrifuges and reconstructing the Arak reactor, modernizing it…
In other words, Iran lies and deceives in order to collect their frozen assets—estimated to be $100 billion-plus—and keep on violating virtually every significant aspect of the so-called “agreement,” while Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry go along with it and claim it as a great victory for their legacy. Even The Washington Post acknowledges how cynical the whole process is, while The New York Times continues as a propaganda organ of the Obama administration. This is the same administration that, as Politico pointed out, “counts ‘bringing peace’ to Syria a 2015 win.”
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