Page 302 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

292 Chapter I I

inciting a hostile reaction. This is most clearly evident in that the Bush admini-
stration explicitly authorized the kidnapping or killing of Iranian government
officials within Iraq, whereas the Iranian government made clear no such inten-
tions in terms of its treatment of British detainees. The killing of foreign politi-
cal officials has been expressly rejected as illegal under the 1963 Vienna Con-
vention on Consular Relations and the 1973 Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons, both of which
the United States and Iran have ratified. The assassination or killing of any Ira-
nian official invited into Iraq, then, represents a violation of the aforementioned
international legal protections. Violation of such laws is a sufficient reason in-
and-of-itself for major coverage of the U.S. abduction of Iranian officials.
Despite expectations of comparable coverage, the propaganda model is once
again vindicated after one reviews the extreme imbalance of coverage of the two
detainment incidents. In the two-week period following the U.S. detainment of
Iranian officials, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post
each reported only three major stories on the incident, for a total of nine stories.
Conversely, U.S. media coverage from these three newspapers totaled forty-nine
major stories in the two-week period following the Iranian detainment of British
personnel.

Table 113

Number of Major Stories Reporting on U.S. and Iranian
Detainment Operations

Coverage of Iran's Coverage of U.S. Detain-
Detainment of British ment of Iranian Intelligence
Sailors Officials
March 24-April 6, January 12-January 26,
2007 2007

New York Times 18 3

Washington Post
Los Angeles Times 15 3

Total

In sum, the actions of an "enemy" regime were deemed far more salient and
worthy of attention than the potentially embarrassing actions of the United
States, which had been ardently condemned as a violation of international law