It is the inherent responsibility of news organizations to sift through unverified claims and allegations to ferret out truths and expose falsehoods. The Trust Principles codified by Thomson Reuters in the midst of World War II, said it best: “Customers across the world depend on us to provide them with reliable and objective news and information.”
Now, as the international community potentially finds itself at a very precarious crossroads—last month the United Nations chief warned that “humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation”—journalistic integrity and careful independent reporting free of bias, the very values prized in Reuters’ principles, are of paramount importance.
Unfortunately, though, Reuters’ article today on the highly tendentious Iran nuclear deal delivers just the opposite: It packages objective news as unverified claims and obscures consensus assessments shared by Western nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as nothing more than belligerent Israeli claims.
According to this narrative, the military nature of Iran’s nuclear program is merely an Israeli allegation, hardly an international concern voiced by the IAEA itself.
Thus, Reuters’ Parisa Hafezi claims, “Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear power, has pledged never to allow Iran to obtain atomic weapons, saying Tehran advocates its destruction. Iran denies ever seeking nuclear arms and says its atomic program is peaceful.”
At no point does Hafezi indicate that the IAEA itself has independently voiced fears of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, positioning the issue well beyond a matter of Israeli claims or pressure.
Thus, in his statement today, IAEA director general Mariano Grossi said, “Unless and until Iran provides technically credible explanations for the presence of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin at three undeclared locations in Iran and informs the Agency of the current location(s) of the nuclear material and/or of the contaminated equipment, the Agency will not be able to confirm the correctness and completeness of Iran’s declarations under its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement. Because it has not yet done so, the Agency is not in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful” (emphasis added).
Indeed, this was precisely the conclusion of the IAEA’s “Iran NPT Safeguards Report,” issued on Sept. 8.
But Hafezi is completely mum on the IAEA’s findings, elliptically alluding to traces of uranium at undeclared Iranian sites while failing to report the IAEA’s conclusions regarding Iran’s refusal to cooperate on the matter. She selectively reports, cutting out the IAEA’s critical takeaway regarding Iran’s stonewalling about the unexplained particles, “The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Board of Governors meets on Monday, three months after adopting a resolution urging Iran to give credible answers to the agency’s investigations into uranium traces at three sites in Iran.”
Hafezi similarly conceals the Western powers’ own suspicions about Iran’s nuclear program. Thus, she reports, “Earlier this month, Iran sent its latest response to the E.U.’s proposed text. But Britain, France and Germany said on Saturday they had ‘serious doubts’ about Iran’s intentions after it tried to link a revival of the deal with a closure of the IAEA’s investigations.”
“‘Serious doubts’ about Iran’s intentions” concerning what, exactly? Iran’s intentions to return to the deal? Or Iran’s intentions vis-à-vis its nuclear program? Hafezi doesn’t clearly specify, and from the context, readers could easily conclude that the Western skepticism was limited to Iranian intentions to cooperate on a deal.
Two days ago, the Western powers did indeed issue a statement expressing doubt about Iranian plans to return to a deal. Significantly, the statement also expressed serious doubts about the stated civilian purposes of Iran’s nuclear program, noting, “In this final package, the Coordinator made additional changes that took us to the limit of our flexibility. Unfortunately, Iran has chosen not to seize this critical diplomatic opportunity. Instead, Iran continues to escalate its nuclear program way beyond any plausible civilian justification” (emphasis added).
Strikingly, at no point does Hafezi report that the IAEA, Britain, Germany and France have all stated that they highly doubt Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful. Instead, she diminishes such concerns as nothing more than a narrow Israeli charge. By ignoring the position of the international monitoring body and Western nations, the Reuters reporter bolsters the Iranian narrative pinning responsibility for any impending clash on Israel.
Reuters further fails to uphold its Trust Principles by casting Iranian threats to destroy Israel—a factual reality—as nothing more than an Israeli claim.
To borrow language from the IAEA’s measured (and ignored) report, this organization is not in a position to provide assurance that Reuters’ Iran coverage is exclusively independent and free of bias.
Source » jns