I saw the PBS segment, “Are U.S. and Iran Veering Toward War?” which continues the media presenting Iran as having a nuclear military program despite the complete lack of evidence for such a program.
In recent weeks we now have the New York Times, The Washington Post, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, National Public Radio and PBS all being asked to retract statements about the non-evidential nuclear military program in Iran. The Post and Star-Tribune both printed retractions. The Times merely excised the offending paragraph from their website with no formal retraction, despite the fact that Arthur Brisbane, the Public Editor, opined in his blog that the phraseology was a mistake. NPR’s ombudsman dismissed the “thousands of complaints” they received about this as being a bunch of “form letters.”
Now we have PBS allowing Dennis Ross to insinuate the existence of a nuclear military program without any remonstrance from either Vali Nasr or the host, Margaret Warner. This is not a quibble. The more often the media repeat this inaccuracy, the more people advocating a military attack on Iran feel they can cite it as fact. It is part of the drumbeat to war, and if the U.S. or Israel attacks Iran on this basis, the media will have been absolutely complicit.
