Journalism in Iran
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Journalism in Iran

From Mission to Profession

Hossein Shahidi

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eBook - ePub

Journalism in Iran

From Mission to Profession

Hossein Shahidi

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About This Book

This book charts the development of professional journalism in Iran since the 1979 Revolution that replaced the monarchy with an Islamic Republic. Written to pay homage to Iranian journalists, the book focuses on newspapers, radio and television providing a fuller picture of Iran's media environment.

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Information

Publisher
Routledge
Year
2007
ISBN
9781134093908

1 The Shah’s last years (1977–79)

The 1978–79 Revolution found the Iranian press in a state of deep hibernation, with about 100 newspapers, 23 of them dailies,1 compared to around 300, including 25 dailies, in 1952,2 a year before Mohammad Mosaddeq’s government was overthrown in the coup organized by the United States and Britain. The fall in the number of newspapers was all the more remarkable since over the same period Iran’s population had doubled to 35 million – 50 per cent of them living in cities, a rise of around 70 per cent3 – and the literacy rate had risen by five times, to just over 50 per cent.4
The sharp decline in the number of newspapers had been caused principally by three rounds of mass closures by the government, almost exactly at 10-year intervals. The first round, immediately after the 1953 coup, affected dozens of left-wing and nationalist newspapers that had emerged during the movement for the nationalization of Iranian oil.5 In March 1963, when the number of newspapers had risen to 227, the government closed down 71 of them, using a cabinet resolution that banned the publication of Tehran-based newspapers with circulations below 3,000 copies and magazines with circulations below 5,000.6 In August 1974, the government used the same resolution to close down 63 newspapers, even though some of these had very high circulations.7 The satirical weekly Towfiq, one of the highest-selling papers in Iran, was closed down in the same year without any official explanation.8 Towfiq’s publishers said the main reason behind the closure had been the desire by the then Prime Minister, Amir-Abbas Hoveyda, to turn the magazine into ‘an obedient and sycophantic’ paper, so the Shah who read it would not receive any unfavourable reports about the way the country was run, and Hoveyda’s tenure would continue unperturbed.9
Of the 100 or so newspapers that remained in circulation by 1978, 64 were being published in Tehran, most of them specialist periodicals on health, sports, religion, and science.10 There were also six national daily newspapers, including the country’s oldest – the afternoon dailies, Ettela’at (Information), founded in 1925, and Kayhan (Universe), founded in 1942. Nicknamed ‘The Twin Giants’,11 they were, and are, the flagship papers of firms with the same names. The other four dailies – all of which were to disappear soon – included two large circulation, young, morning dailies, Rastakhiz (Resurgence), launched in 1975 by the single party of the same name created by the Shah, and the 11-year old Ayandegan (Posterity); the much smaller Paygham-e Emrouz (Today’s Message), which adopted an increasingly crucial tone before the Revolution developed; and the business paper, Bourse (Stock Exchange).12 While circulation figures have been among the most tightly guarded secrets of the Iranian press, Kayhan is reported to have sold 300,000 copies a day in 1977.13 Ettela’at could be assumed to have had a similar circulation, with the other papers selling far fewer copies.
Ettela’at and Kayhan, firms of comparable sizes, with a wide range of publications in Persian, English, French, and Arabic, were among the country’s major employers. In 1976, Kayhan had a staff of 1,500 in Tehran and 1,200 in the provinces.14 By comparison, the average number of staff in Iran’s large industrial firms in the same year was 60. The biggest employers were the car manufacturing companies, with an average staff size of 1,100, soft drink factories with about 600 and the textile industry with 378.15 Most of the employees in both newspapers worked in the administrative, technical, and distribution areas, with the editorial staff accounting for about 100, or less than 10 per cent, in each firm. Financially, the two newspaper groups were highly profitable businesses with huge amounts of advertising, printing, and distribution revenues from the state and private sectors. Even during the 1978–79 Revolution, when Iran’s economy had slowed down because of widespread strikes which closed down the newspapers themselves for more than two months, Kayhan made a profit, albeit a modest one, of about 0.4 per cent.16
Politically, both firms were parts of the Shah’s establishment, Ettela’at’s founder and owner, Abbas Mass’oudi, and Kayhan’s Mostafa Mesbahzadeh having become members of the Senate. After an early period of intense rivalry, by the mid-1970s the two papers were hardly seen as different from each other. The heads of both firms were among the shareholders of several banks and large firms, owned major properties, and had family links with the owners of other big businesses.17 Any new firm, organization or group would try to have one or both of the newspaper owners on its management board to ensure that its news would be carried by the papers. For the papers too, such membership was a means of gaining more influence.18
Multiple occupations, including holding official and editorial positions simultaneously, were also common amongst the staff of the two papers, without any apparent concerns for conflict of interests. Journalists could be found on the payroll at high levels of important ministries, or at lowly posts at Tehran Municipality ‘on the same grade as street sweepers’.19 As a member of staff of the Ministry of Finance, a business correspondent could benefit from advance knowledge of changes in the tax or customs regulations. Links with the municipality could lead to information about the latest urban development plans, enabling the journalist to buy land in the areas concerned and make a profit by selling it once the plans had been announced. Senior staff would also receive gifts in cash or kind from public or private bodies, the total value of which could amount to several times a journalist’s monthly salary.20 The very close relationship between the newspapers and the government not only made it easy for the government’s views to be expressed by the papers, but it also made it unnecessary for the security services to have resident officers at newspapers. Senior editors had to have clearance from, and maintained regular contacts with, the Shah’s intelligence organization, the SAVAK. Any open expression of dissent by the editorial rank and file would be suppressed, sometimes leading to a journalist being jailed or banned from writing.21 Managers or senior editors would receive daily telephone calls from the Ministry of Information on what they should or should not write and would issue some of these instructions as circulars.22

‘Silent giants’

Ettela’at and Kayhan, the only newspapers with their own networks of reporters, had come to rely heavily on the state-owned Pars News Agency and the competing news service run by the state-owned National Iranian Radio and Television, NIRT. In the not too distant past, the two papers had been the main sources for Iranian radio’s evening news bulletin.23 By 1974, limitations on the press had led Ettela’at itself to complain that ‘the press is not able to investigate anything independently, to find out about the deep roots of the issues.’ In the words of the historian of the modern Iranian press, Mass’oud Barzin, during the preceding decade,
neither of the two papers had raised any major social issue which would matter to the millions of human beings. They only tackled marginal subjects or those of interest to small groups. They would pit painters against each other; act as emissaries in the battle between classical and modern poets; carry reports on crime and murder; and limit themselves to printing short foreign news items and mutilated translations of articles from non-Persian language publications. I will not say anything about the other newspapers, for their circulation figures are so low that even if they had meant to have an impact, they have had none.24
According to another chronicler of the Iranian newspapers, Mehdi Beheshtipour, press criticism of government officials was so rare that when an official was criticized in a newspaper, most readers would assume that the piece had been written after consultation with the SAVAK or the Royal Court, and that the ‘shattering blow’ at the official concerned had in fact been delivered by another official.25 There was such deep distrust in the Iranian press in the last decade of the Shah’s rule that it was often said the only truth in the papers was to be found in their death notices.
In the midst of this bleak picture, Iranian journalists of different backgrounds and political views refer to the creation of their trade union, Sandika-ye Nevissandegan va Khabarnegaran-e Matbou’at (The Syndicate of Newspaper Writers and Reporters), as one of the brightest chapters in the history of their profession. The Syndicate was formed in 1962 by 41 journalists, only a handful of whom could have been described as professionals relying on their work for the press as their main source of income. In 1977, the Syndicate had around 500 members, including radio and television journalists. By one account, more than 50 per cent of the members were ‘one hundred per cent professionals’, with the rest made up of part-time or freelance journalists. Among other activities, the Syndicate provided support for some 250 journalists who lost their jobs after the mass closure of newspapers in 1974; it set up an Arbitration Board to look into complaints against Syndicate members; and established a collective employment agreement, approved by the Ministry of Labour, and agreed upon by several publishing houses, including Kayhan, Ettela’at, and Ayandegan. Most importantly perhaps, in view of Iran’s chronic housing shortage, the Syndicate built 122 affordable apartments for its members in a west Tehran suburb that became known as ‘Kouy-e Nevissandegan’ (Writers’ Quarter)26 where some journalists, or their survivors, still live.
One aim that the Syndicate could not achieve was the implementation of a ‘Press Code’ it had approved at the end of its first year of activity, in October 1963, which said:

  1. Any journal that is published for the general public belongs to the public. The journalist should be aware that if he does anything other than serve the interests of the public, s/he27 will have betrayed a trust.
  2. No journalist should commit an act which would not be committed by an honourable individual.
  3. Journalism must be firmly based on impartiality, the love of truth, accuracy and knowledge.
  4. Publication must be based on public interests and aim to shed light on truth, not to please individuals and personal interests. At the same time, the journalist should stand by his/her promise to keep the names of his/her sources confidential or not to publish [what s/he has promised not to divulge].
  5. When writing his/her piece, the journalist should be aware that its publication might inflict irreparable damage on an official or an ordinary member of the public, unless this is required by public and national interests.
  6. It is unbecoming of a journalist to publish unsubstantiated material and should s/he make a mistake, s/he should admit the error openly and seek ways of correcting it.
  7. When quoting other journals, it is necessary to mention the source or to seek permission. Journalists should not distort the material they adapt, or publish an interview without permission.
  8. A journalist has the right, as does any other professional, to expect material and moral rewards from his/her occupation, but not at the cost of lying, covering up the truth, straying from the purity of the pen, or damaging public and national interests.28
Compared with these principles, by 1978–79, state control over the press had become so tight and the journalists’ habit of self-censorship for self-preservation so deep-rooted,29 that while the rising revolutionary movement was making international headlines, Iranians had to turn to foreign sources, chiefly foreign radio stations, to find out what was happening in their country. The expanding protests inside Iran and increasingly strong criticism of the Shah’s regime by foreign governments as well as protests by Iranian students abroad and exiled political activists were reported by the official Pars News Agency’s confidential ‘Special Bulletin’ but not by Iranian newspapers.
One chronological account of the Revolution30 lists 480 events between 8 July 1977, when the Shah dismissed his longest-serving Prime Minister, Amir-Abbas Hoveyda, and 27 August 1978, when Hoveyda’s successor, Jamshid Amouzegar, was replaced with Ja’far Sharif-Emami. Less than a quarter of these reports are attributed to public Iranian sources. The rest are based on confidential Iranian reports or international news agencies. The ratio falls to less than a fifth if one sets aside the last five weeks of Mr Amouzegar’s premiership, when international news stories would break from Iran on a daily basis, including protests across the country with slogans against the Shah, the bombing of a restaurant in Tehran in which 10 Americans were wounded, and the Cinema Rex fire in the south-western city of Abadan, which killed several hundred people. When the domestic newspapers did report the protests, they would often speak of ‘subversive elements shouting anti-patriotic slogans’.31

The weeping monarch

Jamshid Amouzegar, a former Minister of Finance who had been in charge of oil negotiations, had been appointed Prime Minister to deal with the economic crisis that had gripped Iran since 1976, following the fall in oil revenues which had risen by several times only a few years earlier.32 The move also followed widespread Western criticism of Iran’s human rights record, a subject which the US President Jimmy Carter had raised during his election campaign. Among the most serious comments were those from US Congressional committees which raised doubts about the stability of the Shah’s regime, and argued that he should not be sold the sophisticated American weapons he had asked for.33 Announcing his cabinet’s plans on 18 July 1977, Mr Amouzegar said the Government would ‘respect freedom of expression and pen and the consolidation and strengthening of constructive forces created by them, and in turn would expect that the press and the mass media, while reflecting the people’s problems and views, will observe the people’s privacy and dignity and the society’s moral values.’34
Mr Amouzegar’s cabinet included a former journalist and founder of Ayandegan, Daryoush Homayoun, as Minister of Information and Tourism and later as the Government’s Spokesman. Mr Homayoun too announced that ‘from now on, no one should fear criticism.’35 Before appointing Mr Amouzegar, the Shah had already taken moves to ease political restrictions. Between February and August 1977, he had pardoned 357 political prisoners and allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit many more; had allowed foreign lawyers to observe the trial of 11 dissidents accused of terrorism; and had ordered major reforms to the trial procedures in military courts, including the right of civilian defendants to choose civilian lawyers.
During the same period, a variety of Iranian organizations which saw in the Carter presidency a chance to push for reforms in Iran took increasingly daring actions in challenging the regime, denouncing its human rights record and calling for an end to censorship and to the violation of Iran’s 1906 Constitu...

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