WaPo Laments Loss Of News From Iran Which Is Not From Iran
March 07, 2025
Here is a funny incident in which a mainstream media headline is debunked by the sub-headline following it.
U.S. foreign aid cuts threaten to choke off information from Iran (archived) - Washington Post
The reduction in funding for Iranian groups, based largely outside Iran, is affecting the work of human rights monitors, news outlets and civic activists.
The piece laments that certain propaganda groups run by Iranian exiles have, under the Trump administration, lost the funds they need to run propaganda campaigns against Iran.
The cut-off of U.S. funds for these groups does not choke off information from Iran. There is plenty out there from the Iranian government as well as from people of all kind who are living in Iran. What is choked off is the distribution of highly selected (or even made up) (dis-)information by anti-Iranian groups in London or Los Angeles.
The piece itself admits this:
The organizations supported by the United States are largely based outside Iran and fall under the umbrella of “democracy promotion.” They include news organizations, programs supporting civil society and monitors collecting information on human rights abuses.Most of the U.S. support for these groups comes from the State Department’s Near East Regional Democracy fund, known by the acronym NERD, which set up in the aftermath of the 2009 protests by Iranians against their government. In 2024, the Biden administration requested $65 million for NERD, including at least $16.75 million for internet freedom, according to the Congressional Research Service.
...
Most organizations that receive U.S. support operate entirely outside Iran. “Most of their work was collecting the statistics and data from other organizations. They don’t have their own sources inside Iran,” said Arsalan Yarahmadi, a founder of the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, one of the most prominent Iranian human rights organizations, which operates with a network of sources inside the country. He said his group does not get U.S. funding.Yarahmadi said some of the groups that receive U.S. funding do important work but others do little. “Some, all they have is an Instagram page,” he said.
Arsalan Yarahmadi is an Iranian of Kurdish heritage who has left Iran eight years ago and now lives in Erbil in the Kurdish region of Iraq. He seems to dislike the U.S. financed competition to his own propaganda outlet. His Hengaw organization is registered in Norway. Its website gives no hint on who finances it.
The WaPo writer, Susannah George, also laments that the lack of information from outside Iran is effecting the work of "news outlets" which write about Iran.
Is she admitting that part of her job as a Washington Post writer in the Middle East is to copy-paste the press releases by anti-Iranian groups which were financed by the U.S. government? How else could one interpret that?
Posted by b on March 7, 2025 at 16:44 UTC | Permalink