How can British journalists work for Ahmadinejad's Press TV? | News & Politics | News & Comment

Respect party, and MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, has suggested that the BBC, along with Fox, the US network, were providing "opinion masquerading as fact, at length and usually on shaky cam", and said it "may very well be that foreign hands" were behind some of the protests.

Then there's Yvonne Ridley, who recently travelled with Galloway and over a hundred vehicles across North Africa to bring aid supplies to Gaza. She is a British journalist who converted to Islam after being captured by the Taliban disguised in a burka on an undercover assignment in Afghanistan after 9/11. This conversion, Ridley said, helped her to move on from her previous reputation as the 'Patsy Stone [Joanna Lumley's character in Absolutely Fabulous] of Fleet Street'.

Now a prominent pro-Palestine/anti-war campaigner and a politician with Respect, Ridley once called on British Muslims to defy the police after a heavy-handed raid on a house in East London.

She made a detailed documentary about Guantanamo Bay and also hosts some of Press TV's talk shows, including The Agenda. When questioned after Ferrari resigned, she insisted that her show is not subject to any political interference and that she would quit if it was.

Lauren Booth, Cherie Blair's sister, also works for the station. She told the Times that her programme, Remember the Children of Palestine, was "too important for me not to make it".

But then there are those among the station's star names who can't be quite so easily pigeonholed as leftist and loud. Chief amongst these is Andrew Gilligan, the journalist whose career trajectory has taken him from resigning his BBC job after his dispute with Alastair Campbell over the Hutton inquiry, to a position as the Evening Standard's attack dog on Ken Livingstone's record as Mayor of London, and now back to the Telegraph where he worked a decade ago. Gilligan presents a discussion show called Forum for Press TV.

Conservative MP Derek Conway presented a book review show on Press TV

Derek Conway, the Tory MP who was pilloried for nepotism after it emerged that he'd paid his student son Henry for rather more work as a researcher than he'd actually done, was another unlikely Iranian government employee. Until the show was axed by the network, Conway presented Epilogue, a book review show.

Meanwhile, the Press TV website was yesterday running the following headlines: 'Quest for Judaization envelops Palestinian house', 'Former CIA chief charged with sexual assault', and ‘Detained Newsweek reporter comes clean'.

This last one concerns Maziar Bahari, a Canadian-Iranian journalist who has worked with the BBC and Channel Four, and was arrested in Tehran in the aftermath of the election.

Bahari is quoted telling a press conference, presumably under duress, that "on the brink of every velvet revolution Western media try to portray the ruling administration as the traditional, bigoted, inefficient and undemocratic side", and that the media tries to persuade the public that an upcoming election will be rigged and encourage a coup.

FIRST POSTED JULY 1, 2009

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I think money talks and neither Gorgeous 'Meow' Galloway nor money grubbing journalists at Press TV have morality in their career profile - power, publicity and money drive these people. But don't forget the German Technical Company selling the jamming and eavesdropping technology to Iran said it was the same as selling to the US - Business has no morals either. Luckily for us all Israel will take the threats to world peace posed by Iran seriously - soon there will be whirlwind in Iran.

Posted by Philip Gosling at 11:45am on July 2, 2009

Press TV said Neda Soltani's death had been hyped by Western media outlets. IS THAT NOT TRUE?

Posted by famulla at 1:00pm on July 2, 2009

If a teenager protesting for democracy in London had been shot dead by a plainclothes policeman then the story would be all over the media and many embarrassing questions would be asked of the police commissioners and the Home Secretary. What's happening about Neda Soltani's violent death in Iran? If George Galloway and Yvonne Ridley want to do some good for the Middle East, I suggest that they move there to do thier work and stop bad-mouthing the UK. We may not have a perfect society here but it's preferable to the corrupt and repressive regime in Iran.

Posted by Mark Hale at 8:00pm on July 2, 2009

"It's preferable to live in the UK than Iran" quote by Mark Hale shows how low we have sunk in the UK to defend our country and its repressive lifestyle. We live in a dystopian UK and nobody has the cojones to do anything about it! Shame on UK citizens and the highest praise to Iranian citizens in protesting in the most dangerous of circumstances. What will become of the UK in the next ten years it too terrible to contemplate!

Posted by rogeruk at 1:32am on July 5, 2009

"You cannot be serious!" Is there any reason whatsoever to imagine that those who work for Press TV are in any way betraying their ideals or principles? After watching the 'client media' in the UK and the US during the current economic and political crisis, the idea of an independent and free press is laughable!

Posted by Manny Goldstein at 4:53pm on July 5, 2009

I agree with the comment with Manny Goldstein. Any one who works for media outlets like the BBC and CNN is to some extent guilty of helping spread the lies that led to the Iraq war. The same could be said of the British journalists working for Press TV - they are part of a campaign that amalgamates information with disinformation. It is debatable if one side is any worse....or better than the other.

Posted by SAS at 4:14am on July 13, 2009

SAS, how come you didn't mention Fox? Bit partial aren't you? The BBC has spread no 'lies that led to the Iraq war' you may recall, if you were born then, that Andrew Gilligan worked for the BBC when he pissed the British Government off about sexing up phoney dossiers, and the BBC came in for a lot of stick as a result. Why not read your brainwashing soup from Fox like a good neocon and don't stick your nose into British affairs you know nothing about. Manny Goldstein, The BBC was villified for reporting the truth of what Israel was up to in Lebanon and Gaza, in what way does that make them 'client media' whatever that means?

Posted by Peter Simmons at 11:01am on August 20, 2009