Iran's internet blackout obscures reality of war
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth refrained from his usual media-bashing during this morning’s Pentagon briefing. He didn’t repeat any gripes about CNN, The New York Times or other news outlets.
But he did make a very important point about what’s missing from the news media coverage of the war in Iran.
He referenced a video posted on social media and shared by President Trump of large explosions in Isfahan last night. Hegseth said it was an “ammo depot struck by U.S. bombers.”
“You don’t get to see many of those videos because, as a reminder, Iran has still shut off the internet to 99.9% of its population,” Hegseth said.
It’s a critical reminder. Imagine how destabilizing your life would feel if the internet suddenly disappeared for a month.
The digital blackout imposed by Iranian authorities (and justified as a wartime security measure) “is making everything grimmer for a population left in the dark,” Al Jazeera’s Maziar Motamedi wrote from Tehran last week.
“Not only has the shutdown prevented most Iranians from getting their voices out to the global community during the war and largely limited the flow of information to state-run outlets, but it has also inflicted serious psychological and financial pain on the population.”
Iran has choked off the internet before, but this is the longest blackout ever, and this time the shutdown “looks designed to be permanent,” according to The Economist. Earlier this week Fox News quoted a senior Israeli intelligence official calling it a “blackout on truth,” adding, “The regime is hiding reality from its own people. They don’t want the Iranian people to see how badly they’re getting hit.” I thought of that reporting while listening to Iranian-American analyst Holly Dagres, who curates The Iranist newsletter on Substack, talk with Erica Hill on “CNN This Morning” today. “People like me that still have friends and family” in Iran, “we really don’t hear from them,” Dagres said. Snippets of video and info do get out, via Starlink and other methods, and Dagres said she senses “a mixed feeling of hope and fear” from Iranians when they are able to communicate: Hope “that this regime does eventually go” is mixed with fear about what “this regime, if it survives, which it has at this juncture, what it will do to the Iranian people.” She cited the massacre of protesters in January and said there are worries about “a revenge factor.” Due to the blackout, those of us outside Iran don’t know what we don’t know. So news coverage should include regular reminders about Iran’s internet blackout and the ensuing information vacuum, even if journalists run the risk of repeating ourselves about it. That’s why I was glad to hear Hegseth’s comment today. |
Speaking of online censorship… |
The NYT is out with a sweeping new report about Russia’s internet restrictions. Paul Sonne, Valerie Hopkins and Oleg Matsnev say that “of all the examples of growing repression in Russia during four years of war in Ukraine, few have touched more people than the internet restrictions.” The NYT headline calls it a “chaotic drive to cut off Russians from the world.” Read all about it here, along with this sidebar about forms of government control and creative workarounds. Back to the Pentagon beat now… |
First Pentagon briefing in 12 days |
In yesterday’s Reliable Sources, I pointed out the dearth of recent Pentagon press briefings. Today’s appearance by Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine was the first such session in nearly two weeks. Hegseth revealed that he visited US Central Command troops over the weekend. Today was another display of the fact that Hegseth has stacked the briefing room with overtly partisan media types from right-wing and pro-Trump outlets. WaPo’s Dan Lamothe noted on X that the defense secretary is “avoiding the Pentagon’s traditional press corps in favor of those he brought into the building last fall…” |
Pentagon accused of defying court order |
At a hearing in DC yesterday, a lawyer representing the NYT asked a judge “to force the Pentagon to comply with his own order from 10 days ago requiring the Defense Department to strike several provisions from its press pass application and return passes to the newspaper’s reporters,” NBC’s Gary Grumbach reported. “Not only are they not following the order, they are retaliating against the Court’s orders,” attorney Ted Boutrous said. The judge did not immediately rule, but indicated he will follow up soon. >> Per Jeremy Barr, Hegseth advisor Timothy Parlatore spoke with reporters outside court and said, “This entire policy was prompted by the leaks of classified material.” Hegseth has certainly been vexed by leaks during his time as SecDef… |
How MAGA media strips Trump of agency… |
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Reliable Sources editor Andrew Kirell pointed out to me yesterday that MAGA media commentators “almost never give Trump any agency.” That’s certainly true when it comes to Iran. Megyn Kelly recently said Benjamin Netanyahu and Mark Levin, among others, “talked him into” going to war, and they “should be held to account.” Yesterday, we quoted Joe Rogan saying someone “tricked” Trump into striking Iran. And last night, Laura Ingraham questioned whether Trump was “fully briefed” about the risks — and whether he was “able” to absorb all the info.
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About that ‘brutal’ poll… |
“Brutal” was how Jesse Rhodes, co-director of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll, described it. Yesterday’s UMass Amherst/YouGov poll showed Trump’s approval rating “has fallen to 33%, the lowest rating of his second term in office.” Trump fans are primed to disbelieve it, but no doubt 33% has some psychological significance, since it suggests Trump has the support of only one in three Americans (in this poll). The UMass poll now shows up in CNN’s Poll of Polls average, which shows Trump at 37% approval… >> When I say Trump fans are primed to disbelieve, here’s what I mean: Last night Fox’s Jesse Watters preposterously claimed that he sees Trump with 52% approval. |
>> At yesterday’s WH briefing, Karoline Leavitt “used a Fox News graphic as a prop with which to bash the press over its scant coverage of the murder of Sheridan Gorman by an illegal immigrant.” (Mediaite) >> Speaking of Leavitt: Oliver Darcy learned that the White House complained about an unflattering AFP photo of her holding her son while standing next to a turkey — and the image was quietly scrubbed from the wire service. (Status) >> Jake Tapper interviewed Alfred Sikes, who served as FCC chair under George H.W. Bush, and says that if he’d acted the way Brendan Carr has been acting, “I’m sure they would have found a way to quickly get me out of there.” (CNN) >> “Carr said the quiet part out loud at CPAC — touting Trump’s Orbanization of America,” Anthony L. Fisher asserts. (MS NOW) >> CJR is out with a revealing new profile of Tony Dokoupil by Amos Barshad. (CJR) |
Today’s new nonfiction releases |
Sebastian Mallaby is out today with “The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence.” In this excerpt, Mallaby describes how Hassabis “has devoted his life to advancing a technology he thinks could destroy the world.” Plus, friend-of-the-newsletter Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is out with “Trump’s Ten Commandments: Strategic Lessons from the Trump Leadership Toolbox.” >> Also new today: “Jefferson on Race: A Reader,” edited by Pulitzer-winning author Annette Gordon-Reed; “The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness” by Arthur Brooks; and “Arsenio: A Memoir” by Arsenio Hall… |
Picture Laura Dern as Julie K. Brown… |
”Laura Dern will play Miami Herald journalist Julie K. Brown in an upcoming series based on her reporting that brought the late Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes to light,” the NYDN’s Theresa Braine reports. The project, set up at Sony, will be based on Brown’s book, “Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story.” Sony is shopping the series now, so it’s really just a question of which streamer will be the highest bidder… |
This story is splashed across the fronts of the UK tabloids today: BBC Radio 2 DJ Scott Mills has been fired over “a 2016 police investigation into ‘serious sexual offenses’ against a teenage boy,” as The Mirror first reported. “Mills was questioned by police under caution but the case was dropped because of a lack of evidence,” the tabloid noted. Other outlets, including the BBC itself, later confirmed that police had investigated, but closed the matter in 2019. >> One of The Telegraph’s (many) headlines about Mills says this was “one scandal too many for the BBC…” |
>> The Atlantic has hired four more Washington Post talents: Kelsey Ables, Janay Kingsberry, Will Oremus, and Matt Viser. (We mentioned Viser’s impending hire last week.) (The Atlantic) >> Jack Shafer wonders: “At what point will The Atlantic have more journalists on staff than the Washington Post? Or are we already there?” (X) >> And CBS News has added ex-WaPo reporter Daniel Gilbert, as well as Free Press reporter Gabe Kaminsky, to its expanding investigative unit. (TheWrap) >> Former Fox News producer Jason Donner’s lawsuit over his firing has been dismissed “for good.” (Bloomberg Law) >> The New York Times has “cut ties” with a freelancer, Alex Preston, after discovering “he used AI to help write a book review that inadvertently incorporated elements of a Guardian review on the same title,” Corbin Bolies writes. (TheWrap) |
👀 on social media ban enforcement |
In her first report since Australia banned children younger than 16 from social media platforms, Australia’s online safety watchdog said she was “considering court action against Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube alleging they are not doing enough” to enforce the ban, The AP’s Rod McGuirk reports from Melbourne. Many underage users in Australia “have said they were able to bypass age verification systems since the law there went into effect late last year,” the NYT’s Sui-Lee Wee and Laura Chung explain. In addition to the Australian regulator complaints, “Indonesian authorities have summoned officials from Google and Meta over what they said was a failure to comply” with Indonesia’s similar new law… |
More of today’s tech talk |
>> “The United States has directed every American embassy and consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorses Elon Musk’s X as an ‘innovative’ tool to help do it,” Joseph Gedeon reports, citing a diplomatic cable signed by Marco Rubio. (The Guardian) >> “An AI agent that submitted and added to Wikipedia articles wrote several blogs complaining about Wikipedia editors banning it from making contributions to the online encyclopedia after it was caught,” Emanuel Maiberg writes. (404 Media) >> Meta “has begun testing a premium subscription on Instagram in a few countries,” Aisha Malik writes. (TechCrunch) |
Drake-Kendrick beef continues in court |
Marshall Cohen writes: Universal Music Group filed a new brief in an ongoing lawsuit about the 2024 feud between rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar. Drake sued UMG last year, claiming he was defamed by Lamar’s incendiary lyrics. A judge dismissed the case in October, but Drake is appealing. Lawyers for UMG, which denies wrongdoing and is ironically the label for both superstars, argued that “Drake’s view would critically undermine a highly creative art form built on exaggeration, insult, and wordplay.” For hip-hop fans, UMG’s 83-page brief offers an intriguing track-by-track dissection of the beef, weaving together First Amendment jurisprudence with breakdowns of the “hyperbolic disses” within key lyrics. |
A few big sports + showbiz headlines |
>> Netflix, “eager for more NFL,” is “looking to expand its current two-game package to four games,” specifically the league’s new Thanksgiving Eve game and an international game, Jessica Toonkel and Joe Flint report. (WSJ) >> ICYMI: Fox News released a poll showing “that majorities of both sports fans (72%) and non-fans (60%) think major sporting events should be required to stay on free broadcast television, not behind streaming paywalls.” (Fox) >> A new Ampere Analysis survey found that “global streaming subscription revenue” has “tripled in five years.” (THR) >> Demand for “Project Hail Mary” remains high enough that IMAX “says it will look for ways to bring Amazon MGM’s sci-fi hit back to theaters in the near future,” Jeremy Fuster reports. I still need to see it! (TheWrap) |