Covering the Unrest in Iran
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Dave Schuler | Wednesday, June 24, 2009 |
Like many others I’ve been following the events unfolding in Iran with great albeit not obsessive interest. I haven’t been following the tweets for a number of reasons not the least of which is that I can’t distinguish among rumors, reports of actual events, and disinformation. So I’ve been using more conventional news sources and have found the English language the best, not merely because English is the language with which I’m most familiar.
I think The Guardian’s coverage has been particularly good. They’re updating automatically and the updates are coming pretty frequently with lots of good background.
The Times of London has been good, too, although not quite as good as The Guardian.
Next on the list would be the New York Times.
I haven’t found other U. S. sources particularly useful. CNN has lots of coverage but I don’t find it nearly as useful or insightful as the sources listed above. I haven’t found German, French, or Russian language sites particularly useful.
The American Enterprise Institute has started a site called IranTracker. On the site they’re aggregating “incident statistics and map for protests, arrests, and deaths”. They’re listing both corroborated and uncorroborated reports, and plotting them using Google Maps. The graphic above is a screen capture of their map.
I’m not sure of how much credit to give the site. If there’s any validity to the info they’re presenting, the protests have largely been quelled following a violent crackdown by the Iranian authorities and paramilitaries.
I’d appreciate suggestions of other useful sources in comments, particularly from media outside the Anglosphere.
About the Author: Over the years Dave Schuler has worked as a martial arts instructor, a handyman, a musician, a cook, and a translator. He's owned his own company for the last thirty years and has a post-graduate degree in his field. He comes from a family of politicians, teachers, and vaudeville entertainers. All-in-all a pretty good preparation for blogging.
He has contributed to OTB since November 2006 but mostly writes at his own blog, The Glittering Eye.
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Do you know, when I saw the map, before I even read any of it all, I thought the topic was Chicago? The shape of the shoreline, mostly.
I have been ignoring the tweets for the same reason.
CNN is, pardon the expression, all atwitter over Twitter, publishing a breathless panpoply of "tweets," most of which are probably from kids in Podunk, Illinois hyped on drama.
I've been following Winston at his blog, The Spirit of Man. For those unfamiliar with him, he is an Iranian living in Canada with a very strong anti-mullah bias.
