Press TV Correspondent Killed in Turkey

Press TV said Serena Shim, its international correspondent, was killed on Sunday in a car accident near the Turkish-Syrian border. She was returning from a report scene to her hotel in the Turkish city of Surush.

Press TV called the accident “suspicious,” adding that on Friday Shim had received threats from Turkish intelligence agency, accusing her of espionage, and that she told Press TV that she was fearing for her life. 

Serena Shim was an American citizen of Lebanese origin. She covered hotspots in Lebanon, Iraq and Ukraine for Press TV. She was in Turkey to cover the war in Kobane.

Photo: Press TV correspondent Serena Shim who was killed near Turkish-Syrian border (Press TV)

James Foley. In Memoriam

James Foley, journalist and a citizen of the U.S. and the world, who was brutally murdered by the Islamic State terrorists.

UPDATE: U.S. Special Operations forces staged an unsuccessful operation this summer to rescue James Foley and other Americans being held in Syria by Islamic State militants, according to senior Obama administration officials.

“The president authorized earlier this summer an operation to attempt the rescue of American citizens held by ISIL,” said a senior U.S. official. “We had a combination of...intelligence that was sufficient to enable us to act on it,” the official said, and the military moved “very aggressively, very quickly to try and recover our citizens… Unfortunately,” the official said, “it was not ultimately successful because the hostages were not present...at the site of the operation.” (The Washington Post, 20 August)

File photo: James Foley reporting for GlobalPost from Benghazi in March 2011. (GlobalPost)

Aleppo

Freelance Canadian photojournalist Ali Mustafa killed in Syria during the regime’s barrel bombing in Aleppo today. One of his last pictures of Aleppo.

Photo credit: Ali Mustafa/Twitter/pic.twitter.com/BDa4NFzdrK/@borzou

Veteran Journalist David Frost Dies at 74

Video of Frost/Shah Last Interview

Veteran British broadcaster Sir David Frost, best known for his series of interviews with President Richard Nixon, has died. He was 74.

Frost suffered a heart attack while giving a speech on Saturday evening, the BBC reported today. He is survived by his wife of 30 years and three children.

“My heart goes out to David Frost's family,” British Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted this morning. “He could be -- and certainly was with me -- both a friend and a fearsome interviewer.” (BBC, 1 September)

Frost's famous interviews with Nixon, and the story behind them, were portrayed in the play and film "Frost/Nixon," written by Peter Morgan. The late Shah of Iran also sat for his last interview with Frost. The video of that interview, conducted in 1979 in Panama, appears above.

File photo: Sir David Frost (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty)
Video credit: Frost/Shah Interview. Panama, 1979 (ABC News/YouTube) 

Iran Documentary Filmmaker Killed in Syria

Iranian documentary filmmaker Esmail Heydari, 30, was killed in Damascus on Friday, Iranian news agency ISNA reported today. No further details were given. On Wednesday, another Iranian journalist and documentary filmmaker, Hadi Baghbani, was also killed as he accompanied Syrian troops on an operation against rebel forces on the outskirts of Damascus. (ISNA, 24 August)

In September 2012, a journalist, Maya Nasser, working for Iran’s state-run Press TV was shot dead on a Damascus street. Press TV Damascus bureau chief, Hossein Mortada, was injured during that attack.

Photo credit: A Free Syrian Army fighter during clashes with government forces in the old city of Aleppo. August 23, 2013. (Muzaffar Salman/Reuters)

Iranian Reformists Return to Public Sphere - Report

Veteran journalist Barbara Slavin of Al-Monitor participated in the inauguration ceremonies of Iran’s new president. She has filed a first-hand report on independent journalists who were allowed to participate in a presidential press conference, Rouhani’s first, for the first time after eight years of the hardline administration of Ahmadinejad. Slavin, an Iran expert, started her career with the New York Times during the hostage crisis. Slavin is also a senior fellow at Atlantic Council. 

To read Barbara Slavin’s article, please click here.
Photo credit: Supporters of Hassan Rouhani celebrate his victory in Iran's presidential election along a street in Tehran, June 16, 2013. (Yalda Moayeri/Reuters via Al-Monitor)

Iranian MP Condemns Turkish Crackdown On Journalists

A case of the pot calling the kettle black

Jailed journalist Akbar Gangi

By: Jabbar Fazeli, MD

Mohammad Ali Esfanani, the spokesman for Iran Majlis (parliament) Judicial and Legal Committee, criticized Turkey for its crackdown on journalists.

According to the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet (freedom), Mr. Esfanani told Khabaronline in an interview that "Although some journalists in Turkey have leveled criticism against the ruling system of the country, they cannot be suppressed on [the unsubstantiated] charges of being terrorists" (1).

"There are 450 cases of freedom of speech violations in Turkey at the European Court of Human Rights which indicates the lack of freedom of expression in that country" (1).

"Supporting journalists and freedom of speech is supporting democracy, and the Ankara government should take steps in the direction of respecting the rights of journalists and reporters"(1,2).

This comes on the heel of the media watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) report, which placed Iran as the 6th worst in the treatment of journalists (174th out of 179 countries in the RSF press freedom index for 2013), and fifth worst jailer of journalists (3,4).

Based on the RSF report used by Mr, Esfahani, the only countries worse than Iran in the treatment of journalists are: Somalia, Syria, Turkmenistan, North Korea, and Eritrea.

The first paragraph of the RSF report on Iran reads: "Iran is now on the threshold of joining the 'infernal trio' (Eritrea, North Korea, Turkmenistan), the world’s most repressive countries in the domain of freedom of the press. With almost 30 journalists and bloggers in custody, Iran has become the Middle East’s biggest and among the five biggest prisons in the world for journalists" (4).

Iran also enjoys the designation of 4th most censored country, according to the 2012 data compiled by the CPJ, the Committee to Protect Journalists (5).

Mr. Esfanani should have taken the time to read the full RSF report before deciding to ignore Iran's own appalling record and skipping to attacking Turkey for its poor treatment of journalists.

References:

(1) http://english.khabaronline.ir/detail/184193/Turkey-Majlis-lawmakers-/Politics/Politics

(2)http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/iran-mp-criticizes-turkeys-crackdown-on-journalists.aspx?pageID=238&nid=40858

(3) http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html

(4) http://en.rsf.org/report-iran,153.html

(5) http://www.cpj.org/2013/02/attacks-on-the-press-in-2012-iran.php

Photo credit: foriegnpolicyissues.blogspot, Iranian.com

PBS Frontline and Tehran Bureau parting ways

by Mark Pyruz

It appears to be the end of the line for Tehran Bureau at PBS Frontline. Last December, the news site reported it would no longer be accessible at the PBS url.

Over the years, this writer has been a critic of the Tehran Bureau effort. Reputed to be an "independent news site", TB nearly always fell short of the high standards we Americans have come to expect from PBS Frontline. Tehran Bureau, in not even attempting to provide fair and balanced perspectives toward its Iran coverage, seemed to be in constant violation of PBS Frontline's written guidelines.

Some of Tehran Bureau's low points at PBS:

-Reporting that somewhere near half a million persons were in the streets of Tehran protesting the government in mid-2010, made without a competently administered confirmation process. This was not the case.

-Reporting that Ahmadinejad would likely be dismissed by Khamenei, made without a competently administered confirmation process. This was not the case.

-Staff member Muhammad Sahimi's apparent unwillingness to accept a comment-driven debate to include invited experts on the legitimacy of the 2009 presidential election, while apparently unwilling or incapable of providing his own refutation of the Brill analysis on the election. (To date, no one has come forward to offer a credible point-by-point refutation of the Brill analysis, not even Trita Parsi who claimed in his latest book that fraud occurred without putting forth credible evidence to support his contention.)

-This writer's comments on Tehran Bureau's site at one point appeared to be being censored based purely on perspective and not violations of PBS commenting rules and guidelines. It required a formal letter to a producer of PBS Frontline to remedy the situation.

It now appears "Tehran Bureau" will have some sort of column at the Guardian. Obviously the Guardian's standards of journalism are below that of PBS Frontline. But perhaps the new venue will serve to improve Tehran Bureau into a fair and balanced news effort. While this writer is highly skeptical this will ever be the case, we wish them good luck in achieving such should they choose to pursue such a standard of journalism.

Press TV Correspondent Killed in Damascus, Bureau Chief Injured

Press TV correspondent Maya Nasser was killed today by sniper fire in the Syrian capital, Damascus. The Damascus bureau chief for state-owned Press TV and Arabic-language Al-Alam TV networks, Hussein Mortada, was also injured in the shooting.

Uskowi on Iran extends its condolences to Mr. Nasser’s family and to his colleagues at the Press TV and to the community of journalists in Iran. We followed Mr. Nasser’s reporting from Damascus and are saddened at his tragic death covering the war in Syria. Maya was 33 years old.

Photo credit: Maya Nasser (File photo: Press TV)