CNN Misinforms Public; President Rouhani
Never Recognized Holocaust (FARS News Agency, Iran)
The heat is on at the heart of the Islamic Republic, as
hardliners seek to force CNN to
apologize for a translation of an interview between President Hassan Rouhani and Christiane Amanpour. Apparently, according to this article by editor-in-chief
of government mouthpiece FARS News Agency,
the supreme leader finds it intolerable that his president is being portrayed as
someone who condemns the Holocaust. The writer, Seyed Mostafa Khoshcheshm, says
that CNN, unlike FARS, is failing to inform the public in an unbiased
manner. Nice try. Unfortunately, whatever the veracity of his claims, misleading
the public is what the FARS News Agency
is all about - which Khoshcheshm well knows, and admits near the end of his piece.
TEHRAN:
When this week, CNN aired an
interview with President Hassan Rouhani that misled
the public and world media through a falsified translation of the president's
remarks about the Holocaust, and after FNA protested,
it sought to put the blame on others. Many, particularly here in Tehran, began
to wonder whether the American network would have shrugged off an apology about
misinforming the public had something similar happened during an interview with
U.S. President Barack Obama. Perhaps this is one of those cases in which "American
exceptionalism" is being applied.
Let's
look at this case. FNA
complained, and CNN projected the
blame onto a translator that the U.S. network claims was assigned to the job by
the Iranians. But wait a minute, aren't we supposed to be responsible for what
we release to the public? Are we, as professional media, not duty-bound to
provide the public with correct information in an honest and unbiased manner?
CNN and its host in
the interview, Christiane Amanpour,
are still trying to acquit themselves of any flaw in the translation. When it
released the transcript of the interview and aired the voice of the translator they
claim to have been introduced by companions of President Rouhani's
(as The Washington Post, Business Insider and a host of other U.S.
media have quoted CNN as saying). This
makes the case even worse, because now they are insisting on insulting the
public, unless we choose to believe that CNN
and its host are so lost that they are unacquainted with professional courtesy,
honesty, trustworthiness, truthfulness, and professionalism. However, I don't
think that's the case.
CNN
officials and Amanpour are either escaping or
ignoring their responsibility to inform the public with honest and unbiased
information. Do they not owe an apology to public opinion, and not just to the
people of Iran, but to Americans and the rest of the world, particualrly the dozens
of the media outlets around the world that misinformed their nations on the
basis of an incorrect broadcast?
Even
if we accept that CNN is not to blame
for the wrong translation, we cannot ignore that the network should have first
fulfilled its vital responsibility to check the veracity, authenticity and
trustworthiness of the translation, given the importance of an issue like recognizing
or rejecting the Holocaust, and particularly when it relates to the words of the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Should world opinion accept that CNN
and Ms. Amanpour failed to check an interview by one
of their rivals with President Rouhani, which was
aired only five days before CNN, in
which NBC News correspondent Ann
Curry asked the president the same question twice, and President Rouhani repeated twice that "I am not a historian
…"?
Yet
again, now that the network knows of the untrustworthiness of the translation,
it has a responsibility to inform the public of the error and air the interview
again, but this time with a deserving translation. This, plus a professional
apology, is the least the American network can do to make up for its gross
mistake, instead of whitewashing what will otherwise be the intentional
falsification of the president's remarks on the world stage.
If
the translator was hired by the Iranian delegation in New York, CNN certainly had a responsibility to
check the translation and see if it met minimal standards and criteria. CNN's claim in this regard means that
the translator was an outsider introduced by the Iranians, and this means that
she should account for her work to the Iranians and not to CNN. How can one believe that a network like CNN isn't concerned
with its professional reputation, taking it for granted.
Checking
the accuracy of the translation would have been too easy to have gone
unnoticed. Why? Because Christiane Amanpour was there. Amanpour
knows Persian well enough, and even greeted President Rouhani
in Persian. She appeared so attentive during the interview that it's almost
impossible to believe she could have missed something or failed to grasp the
meaning of President Rouhani's words. Perhaps she didn't
check the translation in the course of production. Would a journalist like Amanpour, seen by many young Western reporters as an icon,
make such a mistake! It is hard to believe. Some may say that her knowledge of Persian
isn't very good. If so, CNN could
have hired a reliable translator to verify or check the translation. Yet, one
should know that there are many videos of Ms. Amanpour
on the Internet showing her speaking fluent Persian, and even translating her
sentences into English for the audience.
She
has had long chats in Persian with Iranian reporters, including an FNA editor, and
she has appeared very fluent.
Or
perhaps CNN and Ms. Amanpour have checked the translation (before or after)
airing the interview, but have found it proper and trustworthy, as they pretend
to be the case, thus shunning our criticism. Well in that case, it might be
helpful to look at the judgment of some other well-known Western media outlets
and journalists:
When
Sohrab Ahmari, the Wall Street Journal's assistant book editor,
was asked to compare the translations of FNA and CNN to see if there was any ground for complaint, Ahmari (an Iranian-American) said in a
tweeted message on Wednesday:
"FARS is right! I read/listened to #Rouhani in Pers. He
condemns Nazi crimes but says Shoah "for
historians to verify"
@SohrabAhmari Could you hear Rouhani's
answer behind the voiceover? If so, is FARS's
transcription accurate? And their translation?
@GileadIniFARS News translation IS accurate. I'm literally
at my wits end re how far some journos will go to
sell this moderate narrative.
@SohrabAhmari Thanks. The transcription, too? FARS' Persian
script matches the audio?
"According
to CNN's translation of Mr. Rouhani's remarks, the Iranian President insisted that
'whatever criminality they [the Nazis] committed against the Jews, we condemn.'
Yet as Iran's semi-official news agency FARS
pointed out, Mr. Rouhani never uttered anything
approximating those words. Nor, contrary to the CNN version, did he utter the word 'Holocaust'. Instead, he spoke
about 'historical events'. Our independent translation of Mr. Rouhani's comments confirms that FARS, not CNN, got the
Farsi right."
Elsewhere,
the WSJ article says:
"We'll
leave it to CNN to account for its translation, and why it made Mr. Rouhani seem so much more conciliatory than he was.
Meantime, points for honesty go to the journalists at Fars, who for reasons
that probably range from solidarity to self-preservation aren't disposed to
whitewash their President's ideological predilections."
Commentary
Magazine,
in an article on Wednesday [headlined Rouhani’s Holocaust Weasel Words], says a
comparison of FNA's
translation with the one which has been aired by the CNN reveals:
"When
the two are compared it is clear that the network expanded on what he (i.e.
President Rouhani) said to help convey the impression
that he was condemning Holocaust denial when it is clear that he did no such
thing."
"While
the two have similarities, there is no doubt that the news outlet (i.e. CNN) airbrushed Rouhani's
comments to the point where they are far more acceptable for a Western
audience. The actual remarks make it clear that Rouhani
is as much of an agnostic about the extent of the Holocaust as
Ahmadinejad."
Elsewhere,
Commentary adds:
"It
is up to CNN to explain this attempt
to falsify the content of the interview that goes beyond the usual
discrepancies that often pop up in translations and crosses over into editorial
malfeasance."
You
may also add to the list a report by Business Insider which says:
"Now
a third translation of Rouhani's comments concurs. The Wall Street Journal writes today
that their independent translation agrees with FARS. Rouhani did not say the word
'Holocaust,' instead speaking vaguely about 'historical events.'
"So
what happened? A CNN source told Business Insider that the translator who
worked on the interview was 'hired by the Iranians', and the interview was
're-voiced/dubbed exactly as she translated.' CNN has now posted the entire transcript online."
"Perhaps
it seems like semantics, or an honest result of different translation styles.
However, given how closely the interview was being watched - not to mention the
fact that the interviewer, ChristianeAmanpour, is fluent in Farsi herself - it's a big
issue."
Posted By
Worldmeets.US
And
when the above-mentioned media and many others express their independent
judgment out of professional courtesy, Ms. Amanpour
shows her uncontrollable fury in several tweets and insults both toward they
and FARS for the sin of practicing
professional journalism:
"Stunned
by willingness of @WSJ ed page and others to jump
into bed with Iranian extremist mouthpiece like Fars....
Christiane Amanpour
..."Points
for honesty go to the journalists at Fars" ? Really???...
Now
that it's clear that the translation contains false information, CNN needs to correct its mistake and air
the interview with a proper translation. As long as the American news network
insists on its stance, people are entitled to continue adding to the negative
comments that they have left in different world media in protest of CNN's attempted falsification.
Finally,
since Wednesday when we started criticizing CNN,
our only goal has been to stop an unethical practice and feed true information
to the public, as required by the codes of professional journalism. This is especially
the case, thanks to a lack of such practices on the part of Iranian media
during President Ahmadinejad's years in office. This
provided an opportunity for many in the West to misinterpret and mistranslate
his words in a bid to provoke public sentiment and stir tension between Iran
and the United States. Such dishonest practices served no one's interests, expect
those hungry for war.
President
Rouhani is the head of our country and represented
the Iranian nation at the U.N. His remarks are ours. Moreover, he is an erudite
man vested with full authority by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed
Ali Khamenei. That means he receives enormous support for his actions and
policies from the Iranian nation. This can be seen in the backing for his
address to the U.N. General Assembly on the part of a large number of state and
military officials, as well as political figures from across the political
spectrum.
We
all condemn crime, murder and genocide, no matter who the perpetrator or victim
may be.
We
all deplore the atrocities of the Nazis during World War II and feel sympathy
for all those who lost their lives, family members or friends in that warm
whether they are Jews, Christians or Muslims.
But,
what we stand against is the falsification, fabrication and purposeful
misinterpretation of statements or beliefs, especially when they are directed
at our esteemed president.
