As sad as the passing of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson is, the media is breathing a heavy sigh of relief (as I am sure the President is as well). Entire newscasts are now being devoted to these “superstars” – and sadly missing from the nightly newscast is the latest on the hundreds killed, possibly thousands detained and injured while marching for freedom in Iran. These freedom fighters are the true superstars.
Hollywood is entertainment (though rarely so now). The tragedy of the massacres, brutality, and beatings in Iran should carry much more importance. The inane drone of Shepard Smith lamenting the “tragedy” of Jackson is surreal. The real tragedy is that the Iran story is dead, at least for the dinosaur media.
There is a media blackout in Iran also, of a different kind. Iranian dissident Arash Irandoost appealed to Israel for help: “Dear Israeli Brothers and Sisters, Iran needs your help more than ever now. And we will be eternally grateful. Please help opposition television and radio stations which are blocked and being jammed by the Islamic Republic (Nokia and Siemens) resume broadcast to Iran. There is a total media blackout and Iranians inside Iran for the most part are not aware of their brave brothers and sisters fighting and losing their lives daily. And the unjust treatment and brutal massacre of the brave Iranians in the hands of the mullahs’ paid terrorist Hamas and Hizbullah gangs are not seen by the majority of the Iranians. Please help in any way you can to allow these stations resume broadcasting to Iran.”
Another Iranian freedom fighter, Amil Imani, added that “the protesters are very much in need of outside assistance to fight the technological and information war,” and said that “the Iranian people are lionizing any leader of any nation who comes out strongly against the Islamic Republic at this time.” But it looks as if Barack Obama won’t be playing the Lion King anytime soon. What a missed opportunity for the “leader of the free world.”
Despite Obama’s passivity, Iran and its henchmen are blaming America for the uprising. Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, said Thursday: “The extent of Western and American involvement in Iran’s internal affairs is now clear. What is going on in Iran is not a simple protest against the results of the presidential election. There are riots and attacks in the streets that are orchestrated from the outside in a bid to destabilise the country’s Islamic regime.”
As that regime strikes back hard, I do not believe the movement has been quelled, but I do believe it has been silenced. And this is partly due to the failure of the Western media. The mainstream media fearlessly took on Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney. They were so tough on those who didn’t share their ideological views. They had no fear of those they ridiculed, marginalized, tongue lashed mercilessly. Who can forget how they climbed all over each other to get embedded into Iraq so that they could make America look terrible?
But when it came to really doing their job, they have been absent on Iran. Why weren’t they clamoring to get into Iran to cover an historic, cataclysmic event? CNN has been the only news network to cover Iran in any depth. FOX has been negligent in its lack of coverage. Left leaning sites on the Internet have been leading the way – notably the Huffington Post, whose reporter Nico Pitney has been almost a singular voice in speaking up for the Iranian protesters. And blogs like Revolutionary Road and Get Honest Third Eye deserve commendation for doing the job the mainstream media has not been doing. Get Honest Third Eye had the first video that showed an Iranian being shot on camera by government officials. The shooting occurs while the person filming is quite far away, but the video then shows closer images of his body.
It is indelible images like those that reveal the full horror of what has been going on in Iran. But now, Iran’s citizen journalists have gone dark. The tweets are not coming in. “New” twitters, pro-Ahmadinejad (twitters with ironic names like “antifascista”) have been tweeting vile propaganda. The media can talk about Michael Jackson all day, with no news coming out of Iran to distract them.
The only losers are those who are yearning to be free.
Pamela Geller is the editor and publisher of the Atlas Shrugs website and former associate publisher of the New York Observer. Her op-eds have appeared in The Washington Times, World Net Daily, The American Thinker, Israel National News and other publications.
Courageous Pamela Geller is publisher of the popular atlasshrugs.com. 
