Exhibit A: Word From Iran

I throw socks at my television. When I disapprove of something, when most people would just change the channel, I start hurling socks. It isn't exactly the most productive use of my time, or my socks for that matter, but it gives me a small sense of satisfaction. Lately, however, it hasn't been working.

I'm running out of socks, and things are getting too personal. Under any other circumstances, the death of Michael Jackson would have devastated me, but today, I have bigger things to worry about. Sure, I'll never forget sitting with my eyes glued to the TV as a kid, watching him dance with monsters, but I know real monsters today that put the ones in the "Thriller" video to shame.

While I am hearing horror stories over the phone from Iran, I'm getting nothing but MJ news on my TV screen. Hence the sock holocaust at the foot of the television in my living room.

But back in Iran, it appears that they are getting real news, not from the state-controlled media, but rather, from their satellites. I've run into the strangest things in Iran thanks to satellite. It was where I was first introduced to the Backstreet Boys, Metallica and the Kelly Family, for example.

Today, however, Iranians aren't watching quite as many music videos. Now they're watching themselves make headlines. The most frustrating part of watching this programming in Iran has to be the fact that everyone is reporting on how impossible it is to get "verifiable" news out of the country, when they are still in constant contact with their friends and family outside of Iran.

I admit that my calls have been cut off on occasion, especially lately and on landlines, but communicating with Iran is far from a challenge. I frequently get through on the first try. Yet, reporters keep complaining about the difficulty getting information out of Iran. It's almost as if the Iranian government has given journalists an excuse to stop doing their jobs.

It's the 21st century for God's sake. Just because you can't stand on the streets of Tehran or Shiraz, it doesn't mean you can't get information about what's going on there. But then again, there is the issue of "verifiability." How are we to trust eyewitness video footage if it's taken on a cell phone? I mean, how can something be real if we can't see it in HD?

I admit, I'm not a "real" journalist. I didn't go to journalism school.

I did, however, go to law school, and while they don't teach journalistic etiquette there, they do teach a thing or two about evidence. Ask any lawyer what the toughest part of evidence is, and she'll tell you it's hearsay. The hearsay rule initially seems easy on its face. But then there are the boatload of exceptions: excited utterances, dying declarations, public records and about thirty others, including a catch-all exception that allows for admission of hearsay that is not otherwise included in any of the other exceptions to the hearsay rule.

In other words, if a piece of evidence serves the interests of justice, it's packaging becomes irrelevant. There are enough YouTube videos of the events in Iran to fill the airwaves for the next year. The least the mainstream media can do is accept a few of them into evidence. If not in the interest of justice, then in the interest of truth.

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Comments

[catrst]

Ironic thing is from everything I can ascertain about Michael Jackson, he would be the first one to not want the coverage of his death to make things harder for the world to witness abuses in Iran. In fact I watched a video of street protests in Iran set to the soundtrack of his work "They Don't Really Care about Us". It was tremendously appropriate. It may be, in the cosmic sense, that MJ's death gave something of a time out so that the world could catch up with the news coming out of Iran and give the regime the false impression that everyone had lost interest and descent would fade away. I have no doubt the election was fraudulent. I also don't want to see protesters mowed down in the streets. The Iranians I have seen on video clips protesting don't seem like they lack for courage, intelligence or integrity. They are "Bad" as MJ might define it, not wielding brutal force but doing the right thing and standing up to oppression. We've had an unsettling eight years of hardliners and bullies messing with our nation so I can to some extent relate. Obama's election was a great celebration for those who wanted an end to that. Iran, I for one, am paying attention to everything available to me in the news regarding your plight and I am at least grateful that we have a leader that won't exploit your trials.

[Hass]

Problem is, there's no actual evidence of election fraud in Iran either. See IranAffairs.com for the compiled list of claims and counter-claims. None bears scrutiny.

[wereeverywhere]

Amazing. There wee people who stood up for the integrity of the show trials, too. Give some scrutiny to the rotten IRI and tell me what you see it doing to its people.

[Khirad]

This is so beyond election fraud. Besides, you've spammed the site before. It's an interesting take, I have quibbles with some of the points, but overall it spectacularly missed the point.

[Hass]

In other words you don't have any answer to the points raised.

Fact remains, there's no actual evidence of election fraud in Iran.