To wonder why the mainstream media is not reporting the massive anti-regime protests in Iran?

I think the protests started on the 28th of dec. happy to be corrected.

By the 30th BBC had it as a news item and also had a podcast.

It’s been slowly ramping up.

Now it’s absolutely massive news everywhere.

I can’t believe we are even arguing about this.

They are. it's been headlining BBC news for days since the protests and the violence in response got so bad, and it was reported before that too.

And incidentally I would say that most (but not all) the posters here are firmly on one "side" of the debate, so their comments towards you are going to be more strongly worded than comments from someone who is neutral?

If you look the meanings of proselytism and evangelism (or acting as missionaries) you will find distinctions between the meanings and there are also shades of grey and different degrees in relation to each in relation to how things are done in practice. From personal experience I would definitely say there is as much encouragement from Buddhists for new people who are interested to join them as there is from Churchgoers. The paragraph you quote suggest that Buddhism is part missionary (travelling to other lands) and part not (at higher levels respecting other belief systems)? Which makes sense too.

Incidentally, wiki isn't an amazingly reliable source as I am sure you will agree and you will find opposing or nearly opposing views on the same point in different pages - so you and i could quote from wiki endlessly to try to prove opposite points (no idea why we'd want to, though).

Some people think that what becomes news is driven by political interests and how news is reported is affected by (and gives an indication of) the UK's official foreign policy. If this is true (I couldn't comment one way or another) the way this happens and the degree of control becomes more extreme in a pre-war period. Which we may be in. This is what history tells us, too, though whether it is actually happening now, as some people say, i couldn't comment.

I don't think regime change or the US or Israel taking over will benefit the people in Iran, to be honest, no. I think offering help in relation to specific discrete issues and using international pressure via UN over specific concerns is okay, and that applies to Iran, the US, the UK as well as most other countries.

Are you aware of what happened in 1953, 1979, etc?

What would you do if posters were on one side with some of those and on the other side on others? As many posters are.

Criticisism of the BBC - with all due respect has the BBC not recently admitting to editing a video to give a completely different version of the Capitol Hill speech than what actually happened? And are people allowed to notice that how reporting is done has changed over the last decade or so?

And are posters allowed to agree with some things Trump does and not others? I agreed with the DOGE investigations. But I do not think Trump's position over Greenland "just in case someone else tries to take it first" is reasonable. What would you do with people who judge the situation rather than typecast the leader?

It was not on BBC TV news. Not everyone reads an app you know. And it certainly wasn't headline news.

As you do too.

Those earlier reports were not mainstream news e.g. BBC TV news. The never ending pro Palestinian matches and demos in central London have always been reported.

@oldtiredcyclist

I’m so sorry, what a worry for you and your family. I hope you hear from them soon.

I have relatives in Iran, who we have not been able to contact for five days, because the internet was closed down last week and we cannot use mobiles or landlines to contact them. I agree that the mainstream press were slow off the mark - BBC, ITV, Sky, Channel 4 etc., but a lot of journalists inside Iran have been arrested. We were watching the news yesterday and most of it is being regurgitated from the past few days. The rumour mill is in full swing, so we don't know the real number of casualties, or if certain reports of mullahs flying out of Tehran to Moscow are true. There are certainly still flights from the two major airports in Tehran. I use the following source, which has been reporting on this since January 3rd.

kayhanlife.com/

It was news, I literally read about it on the BBC app. What are you on about?

Its not just me disagreeing with you, no 🤣

I’d gladly give it a rest if you’d stop parroting the same thing over and over like a broken record.

People earlier in the thread have already linked to earlier reports, the fact you keep repeating the same thing doesn’t make it true.

Demonstrations in general rarely get news coverage, irrespective of the issue.

So they are. It's been all over The Guardian every day. I think they're pretty mainstream.

You have now but a week ago when the protests were already taking place, and had been since end of last month, it was barely mentioned and BBC News, our national TV broadcaster, ignored it for days.

Today a large demo supporting the Iranians was held first at the Iranian Embassy and then at 10 Downing Street. I've checked on both the BBC news website and the Guardian website and there is no mention of this Iranian support in London. Why is that not news?

And you are speaking for all those posters, I assume? Give it a rest.

I've seen it on BBC, C4 and Sky I'm not sure why you think it's being ignored

I've been hearing about it- certainly a lot on Radio 4.

I personally didn't find my degree taught me the skills needed to understand and analyse the complexity of the world (studied a humanity at a decent uni and got a 2:1). There was a lot of focus on critical analysis for papers but this was always fairly simplistic (e.g. comparing sources from two experts with opposing theoretical perspectives).
Comparatively, to understand something like the protests in Iran you'd have to be able to find your own sources, assess them, and make an informed judgement. And you'd have to do this for every facet of the country, including its global role
It seems like a combination of lack of skill (particularly from journalists who have defended the coverage but not applied the same restraint elsewhere) and the resources to do proper investigative journalism.
I heard the BBC used to make their journalists do a lot more training to bring them up to standard, so the loss if this probably played a part in its decline.

It’s not gone over anyone’s heads, it is, as I said before that very often until a global story escalates it’s not deemed headline news in the UK.

Similarly there will be many UK based news stories that are reported here that will barely get a mention elsewhere or would be totally ignored, news is targeted to the region it’s being delivered to.

Thank you. This is exactly the point I was trying to make but it appeared to go over some people's heads.

I think the point posters who disagree with you are trying to make is that, in their view, the importance of this, even early on, seemed to go unrecognised - it should have been a much bigger story than it was.

SO they question why it wasn't given more prominence.

In any case, US readers here are a minority, and Trump supporting ones even more so. But they often add an interesting perspective that is really useful for discussions.