Glenn Greenwald On 'Young Turks': Media 'Taking The Lead' On Hyping Iranian Threat (VIDEO)

Glenn Greenwald: Media 'Taking The Lead' In Hyping Iranian Threat

Current's Cenk Uygur and blogger Glenn Greenwald talked about media coverage of Iran on Tuesday's "The Young Turks." Both agreed that large sections of the press are practically howling for the U.S. to invade the country.

Greenwald has recently written extensively on what he sees as fear-mongering reporting in the media, from NBC reports calling the U.S. Fifth Fleet the "world's first line of defense" against the Iranians, to an ABC report he called " irresponsible propagandistic trash." He brought that viewpoint to Uygur's show, saying that he thought that the media was "taking the lead" in beating the drums.

"You don't really have the government pushing [war] like they did with Iraq, and yet the American media is still as aggressive — in fact, you could even say more aggressive — with regard to hyping the threat about Iran," he said. "The government seems to be lagging behind rather than driving the propaganda," he said.

"How do you think they're doing it?" Uygur asked. "Because I don't think ABC, NBC, CBS met in a smoke-filled room and decided, 'let's start a war with Iran.'"

"I think it's cultural," Greenwald said. "...The way that the American media looks at the world is very nationalistic. It’s very simple-minded and very kind of xenophobic. The idea always is that whoever has any tension with the United States is inherently the evil party.”

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