The 'information blackout'
Jake Tapper asked a key question on “The Lead” yesterday: “What sort of information are we getting, if any, from people inside Iran?”
“It’s been extremely difficult” to connect with Iranians, Clarissa Ward answered, partly due to the ongoing internet blackout.
This morning, NetBlocks said Iran’s latest blackout “has entered its fourth day, with the national censorship measure now in place for over 72 hours.” The Guardian spoke with experts who said the outage “is mostly about survival and control for the country’s rulers.”
But “we get glimmers” from inside Iran, Ward said, since some Iranians — and their videos and photos — have been able to reach the outside world via Starlink, landline phones and other methods.
While some residents are celebrating the death of the supreme leader, there’s also “a lot of terror,” Ward said, amid heavy bombardment by the US and Israel. She said “there is real fear among so many people as to how this thing is going to end.”
There are other “glimmers,” as Ward put it, too: Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB is showing the aftermath of some strikes. News agencies like Reuters are getting some photos out. And satellite images are showing areas that can’t be reached by photographers. These images from Planet Labs show burning Iranian naval ships in Bandar Abbas.
The New York Times has been quoting text messages from Tehran residents and showing photos of damage at a hospital taken “on a government media tour.” The BBC World Service has been citing info from a journalist in Tehran, accompanied by a reminder that “international news organizations are often refused visas to Iran, which severely limits their ability to gather information there.”
Canada’s CBC News has been speaking with Iranians fleeing the country and relocating to Turkey. Many of the people Briar Stewart interviewed there “feared speaking” publicly: “Often, when they agreed to interviews, they often requested that their name or image be withheld because they feared facing reprisal.”
“The people of Iran live in an information blackout,” Cameron Khansarinia, VP of the National Union for Democracy in Iran, told Tapper yesterday. They’re “unable to share in many instances what’s happening to them with the outside world.” This directly affects how the war is covered, framed, and understood. “The reporting of wars seems to have been inverted; what the powerful say and do is being reported first, and the killing of innocents is mentioned in passing, if at all,” Ben de Pear, a former Channel 4 News editor, wrote on LinkedIn, arguing for more coverage of the girls’ school that was hit in Iran. >> CJR’s Jem Bartholomew and Ivan L. Nagy write: “In the days and weeks to come, as the Iranian people endure more hardship, it’s crucial that the press bear witness to their suffering” — despite all the impediments outlined here. |
The ‘sheer scale’ is overwhelming |
CNN’s homepage headline right now: “Israel hits Beirut and Tehran as US allies fend off fresh Iran attacks.” As the military conflict unfolds minute by minute and missile by missile, unverified and/or fake videos and photos have spread just as quickly across social media, leaving reporters scrambling to keep up. “I’ve been doing this work for over a decade and covered multiple conflicts, but I don’t remember a time when open source investigators and fact-checkers have been this busy,” Shayan Sardarizadeh of BBC Verify said on X overnight. “The sheer scale of this war between the US, Israel and Iran, the volume of major daily incidents happening across the Middle East that need to be investigated, and the rampant spread of misinformation on social media are beyond any one person’s capacity to cover,” Sardarizadeh said. He gave thanks for the “ever-increasing community of online investigators, geolocaters, and fact-checkers” that are helping with the work. Speaking of the rampant spread of misinfo: Viral social media posts claimed to show the fiery aftermath of the drone attack on the US embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, yesterday, but one widely-circulated photo was AI-generated, and a widely shared video was from an old truck fire. When Fox’s top news anchor Bret Baier reposted the video, users jumped in to correct him… |
MAGA media isn’t fully buying it |
Last night, Jon Stewart spent the first 23 minutes of “The Daily Show” dissecting Pete Hegseth’s defensive press conference and other angles. He concluded, “How quickly the right has gone from ‘peace through strength’ to ‘peace through war.’ And we’re all just along for the ride, in a war with no clear purpose, no end in sight. It’s all just at the whims of Donald Trump.” Some prominent MAGA media figures want off the “ride.” This morning’s Politico Playbook highlighted criticism from Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Matt Walsh, Mike Cernovich and “plenty more,” while noting that the White House clearly “feels pressure to push back on heavy criticism — most crucially, from across its MAGA base — that a convincing case for war has not been made.” Rachael Bade reached Trump on the phone last night and asked about Carlson and Kelly’s objections in particular. His reaction: “I think that MAGA is Trump — MAGA’s not the other two.” Trump also told Bade that Carlson’s criticism “has no impact on me.” That’s especially interesting given the NYT’s reporting that Carlson visited the Oval Office “three times in the past month to argue against an attack.” At the same time, CNN’s new poll showing that nearly 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of the war also showed that self-described MAGA Republicans are mostly with Trump. Time will tell if the chattering class skepticism trickles down to ordinary pro-Trump voters. CNN’s David Chalian has a great breakdown of the poll here… |
It’s Election Day in America |
The NYT’s framing in its AM newsletter today: “The midterms begin during war.” There are big newsy primary elections in North Carolina and Texas today. The cable news networks will be covering the races tonight (though balanced with Iran coverage, of course). NBC will live-stream its “Kornacki Cam,” which Steve Kornacki bills as “no punditry, just the results.” It will be NBC’s new norm “for all significant primary and special elections going forward.” |
Today’s new nonfiction releases |
My old friend Joan Lunden is out today with her memoir, “Joan: Life Beyond the Script.” Lunden was back on “GMA” this morning, sharing the book. >> Also new in stores today: Lloyd Blankfein’s “Streetwise: What I Learned Getting to and Through Goldman Sachs,” Jazmine Ulloa’s “El Paso: Five Families and One Hundred Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory,” Anand Gopal’s “Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution” and Roger Bennett’s “We Are the World (Cup): A Personal History of the World’s Greatest Sporting Event.” |
Trump says he’s coming to dinner |
This year’s White House Correspondents’ Association president, Weijia Jiang of CBS News, has worked hard to keep open lines of communication between the Trump WH and the press. Jiang and the WHCA board also tried to make Trump feel welcome at this April’s dinner. Until Trump, presidents almost always attended the annual event and, at the very least, paid lip service to the critical role of the press corps. Jiang and the WHCA board believed it was worthwhile to try to seek his participation this year. Trump said yes Monday night on Truth Social, touting that he’s the “honoree,” the same designation given to past presidents at the dinner. (Then again, past presidents didn’t call the press the “enemy of the people.”) >> A TV news exec remarked to me, “Jiang and the board will either successfully take the temperature down, or this will totally blow up in their faces while they are all sitting up there on the stage. Time will tell.” |
During yesterday’s Paramount investor call, CEO David Ellison “shared that following the merger, Paramount+ and HBO Max will join to form a single streaming platform,” CNN’s Liam Reilly reports. At the same time, Ellison said, “HBO should stay HBO.” CNBC’s Alex Sherman writes that “HBO is likely to be a sub-brand within the larger service, according to a person familiar with Paramount’s plans. HBO is currently run by Casey Bloys, whose contract runs out in 2027, another person said…” >> “HBO Max is still going ahead with its U.K. launch, despite questions over its future as a standalone platform,” Variety’s KJ Yossman reports. The launch is slated for March 26. For financial and legal reasons, WBD basically has to continue with its business plans while Paramount pursues regulatory approval of its takeover plan, no matter how likely the eventual takeover looks… |
The Middle East $$ question |
“Paramount won’t say whether Middle East money is funding its WBD deal,” Business Insider’s Peter Kafka writes. The context: Back in December, “Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar were going to chip in a collective $24 billion into the deal. Are those countries part of the new deal Paramount struck with WBD last week? We don’t know yet.” Kafka is struck by the fact that “outside of a few complaints from the likes of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the notion that Middle Eastern nations might own a meaningful stake in an important US company doesn’t seem to have registered as an issue, for now.” But he says “one reason is that Gulf state money is increasingly everywhere, including in big US companies.” |
A few more Paramount notes |
>> Speaking of Warren: Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Rep. Sam Liccardo, and she “sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles on Monday demanding answers regarding their meeting with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos,” Lucas Manfredi reports. (TheWrap) >> Speaking with the FT at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, FCC chair Brendan Carr said the Middle East financing “would qualify under FCC rules as what we call bona fide debt, meaning, it would be a very quick, almost pro forma review.” (FT) >> “I am quite frankly a little bit nervous for the industry,” Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters told Daniel Thomas and Christopher Grimes. (FT) >> One more from Manfredi: “Fox’s Lachlan Murdoch Expects Regulators to Put Conditions on Paramount-WBD Merger.” Murdoch also previewed Fox’s upcoming rights talks with the NFL… (TheWrap) |
Savannah’s newest message |
“Please don’t stop praying and hoping with us,” Savannah Guthrie wrote yesterday on Instagram after visiting her mom’s home with her siblings and leaving yellow flowers at the makeshift tribute outside. “It’s been one month since the ‘Today’ co-anchor’s mother was kidnapped,” NBC’s latest story notes. |
>> Versant reported earnings for the first time this morning. The company’s stock popped 5% in premarket trading, partly due to a dividend and share buyback plan. (Bloomberg) >> “Kalshi, one of the world’s largest prediction market companies, struck a deal with the Associated Press to license its elections data starting with the 2026 midterms,” Sara Fischer reports. (Axios) >> BBC chief operating officer Leigh Tavaziva “is stepping down amid continued leadership upheaval at the UK national broadcaster.” (Deadline) >> The Daily Caller has named Amber Duke its new editor-in-chief. (Daily Caller) |
>> “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Monday that the company ‘shouldn’t have rushed’ its recent deal with the U.S. Department of Defense and outlined revisions to the agreement.” (CNBC) >> The Supreme Court has declined “to take up the issue of whether art generated by artificial intelligence can be copyrighted under U.S. law.” (Reuters) >> X is adding “a new ‘Paid Partnership’ label that creators can apply to their posts to indicate they’re advertisements.” (TechCrunch) >> Ars Technica “has terminated senior AI reporter Benj Edwards following a controversy over his role in the publication and retraction of an article that included AI-fabricated quotes.” (Futurism) |
SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST… |
Sulzberger asks you to support original reporting anywhere |
“The New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger has voiced a new ad encouraging listeners to support any news organization dedicated to original reporting — even if it’s not the Times,” NiemanLab’s Sarah Scire writes. This is Sulzberger’s first-ever ad, and it’s set to air in “The Daily” and other NYT podcasts this week, the publication says. |