C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 LONDON 000127
SIPDIS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/16/2019
TAGS: PGOV, AF, IR, KPAO, PHUM, PREL, PROP, TI, UK
SUBJECT: IRAN: BBC PERSIAN TV BEGINS OPERATIONS
REF: EMB LONDON (GAYLE) EMAIL TO DEPT 12/24/08
Classified By: Political Counselor Richard Mills, Jr. for reasons 1.4 (
b) and (d)
1. (C) Summary. BBC Persian TV launched its well-resourced
broadcast operations January 14. Both anti-regime exiles and
the Tehran regime continue to attack BBC's objectivity. The
BBC's effort is a long-term one aimed at attracting
Farsi-speaking audiences in Iran, Tajikistan, and
Afghanistan; broadcasts will be unhindered by jamming. BBC
Persian TV has no office in Tehran, but has in recent months
recruited many young journalists directly from Iran for its
London staff, and will rely heavily on internet contributors
for footage from inside the country. One BBC executive's
public comments, possibly intending to curry favor with
Iranian authorities, claimed for BBC Persian TV a level of
credibility and objectivity he argued compares favorably with
VOA Persian TV's work. End Summary.
Iranians' Criticism, BBC's High Hopes;
BBC Radio Farsi Unaffected
--------------------------------------
2. (C) BBC Persian TV, boasting a sharply expanded staff and
lavish studio facilities on Regent Street in London, launched
its 8-hour per day broadcast operations January 14. The
launch comes amidst a flurry of rhetorical charges, widely
reported by BBC and other media, from the Tehran regime that
the BBC has a subversive agenda of regime change and
psychological warfare, along with opposing claims from
anti-regime Iranian exiles that BBC's coverage has a biased,
pro-regime slant. Rhetoric from both sides is likely to
continue, given Tehran's broad distrust of Western media as
well as the BBC's past role, in the eyes of many Iranians, as
an interested participant in modern Iranian history (most
notably, Iranians argue, in the 1953 Mossadegh coup and in
criticism of the late Shah before his 1978 fall). UK press,
and some Embassy contacts, see BBC Persian TV's hiring of
several dozen young Iranian journalists and staff recently
arrived from Tehran as inherently suspect, and evidence of
manipulation by the Tehran regime of BBC programming.
3. (SBU) BBC World Service Head Nigel Chapman, as reported
in UK press, said the BBC aims at 11 million viewers by 2011
in Afghanistan, Iran, and Tajikistan. London Iran Watcher
(Poloff) in a December tour of BBC Persian's spanking new
studios in Upper Regent Street engaged Daryush Karimi, a news
editor for the Persian TV operation. Karimi said BBC's
Persian radio (broadcasting since 1941) will be unaffected;
Persian radio is a separate program in BBC's offices in
Aldwych, a different area of central London. Karimi said BBC
Persian TV would work closely with and draw from
contributions from BBC's on-line Persian website and blogging
activities.
Jamming Not An Issue
---------------------
4. (C) Karimi told Poloff jamming is not expected to be a
problem; he said BBC will jump its broadcasts back and forth
between two satellites. IRIG entities, according to Karimi,
use one of the same satellites for their own programming and
are thus expected not to try to interfere with BBC
broadcasts. A UK media report noted Iran's Revolutionary
Guard Corps has Cuban-supplied jamming equipment, but that
such equipment is not cost-effective in the Iran context.
Large Budget but No Tehran Office;
Many Recent Hirees Fresh from Iran
----------------------------------
5. (C/NF) BBC Persian TV has a USD 23 Million (GBP 15
million) annual budget. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office
in 2007 had told Poloff BBC Persian TV was to start
operations just a few months after its 2006 authorization by
Parliament; FCO explanations since mid-2007 for the delay
have cited general funding problems. Karimi and other BBC
Persian TV staff during Poloff's mid-December visit to BBC
Persian TV studios were reluctant interlocutors but said
among BBC Persian's 150-plus staff (a figure also in current
UK press reports) were dozens of 2008 arrivals to London in
their 20's and 30's from Iran, where they worked in
"journalism-related" positions. Extrapolating from the FCO-
and BBC-provided timeframes, the most recently hired staff at
BBC Persian TV appear to have been hired out of Iran after
BBC had been refused permission by IRIG to open an office in
Tehran. All recent arrivals at the BBC from Iran to whom
Poloff spoke, and their managers, declined to discuss details
of their hiring and background, but said they were recruited
by BBC in Iran, by phone and internet, beginning in spring
2008. BBC has one accredited, English-speaking staffer in
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Tehran. BBC editors indicate BBC will, because it has no
office in Tehran, have to rely heavily for news images on
input from other BBC offices in the region and, especially,
on internet uploads from web-savvy BBC collaborators and
audience members in Iran. All of the dozen or more phone
conversation fragments Poloff overheard in BBC Persian TV's
news and editing rooms were in Farsi, and may have been
international calls; most email screens were also in Persian.
6. (C) One staffer at BBC Persian, whom Poloff first met in
November, is a 20-something who stated she had never traveled
to the West, and had been in the UK since September 2008, but
spoke remarkably fluent, idiomatic, U.S.-accented English.
She had worked for Press TV in Tehran -- about which she was
non-specific but characterized as a "difficult" experience
due to constant official monitoring of loyalties and work
content. Perhaps still adjusting to a Western environment,
and clearly struck by being in conversation at last with a
representative of the "Global Arrogance," the staffer was
evasive over the course of several conversations, in
discussing how BBC found her or other recent hirees inside
Iran and how transparent she was with her then-current
employer about her BBC contacts.
BBC Enjoys Prestige, Claims "Balanced, Friendly"
Coverage, Calls VOA Persian "Slanted"
--------------------------------------------- ---
7. (C) Somewhat ironically, according to press sources and
Embassy Iranian blogger contacts, BBC is the overwhelmingly
preferred source for foreign information among Iranian
politicians and leaders, including hard-liners for whom UK
(and U.S.) perfidy is a daily catechism. In general, the
cachet and prestige of the BBC, remains high in Iran, due in
no small part to an ubiquitous belief among Iranians in
British political acumen and omniscience. Earlier in
January, as the BBC broadcast start-up neared, IRIG critiques
of BBC's intention to subvert Iran through a soft "velvet
revolution" increased. In response to these official Iranian
attacks, BBC has portrayed itself as an institution which has
moved on from admitted historical errors in Iran. BBC
Persian Executive Editor Steve Williams described BBC
Persian's rival, the Persian service at Voice of America, as
"blatantly neo-con" and "incredibly critical and slanted
(against IRIG)," contrasting VOA's alleged bias with BBC's
own plan to be "balanced, sophisticated and friendly."
Comment
--------
8. (C/NF) The long delay to BBC's start of operations, from
2006 to 2008, may have arisen, in addition to budgetary
challenges, from unsuccessful, repeated BBC attempts to
obtain IRIG permission to establish an office in Tehran. Not
having such a presence inside Iran inevitably makes
generating coverage of Iranian politics and society much
harder, and may have forced BBC to reassess its reporting
strategies, re-working its London staffing to assure a flow
of web-based footage from inside Iran. BBC's
characterization of its own benign intent, and its starkly
negative portrayal of VOA's objectivity reflects, if not
BBC's own political bias, then at least a very competitive
approach to audience share, and a possible desire to reach an
accommodation with IRIG authorities on BBC's operations in
Iran.
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