How do we know what we are being fed by newspapers and other media? The Associated Press releases an article and newspapers across the country pick up the story; you’ll find the exact same story over and over again, hundreds of times over. Just because the A.P. releases a story and it is printed repeatedly, how do we know it is fact and not perspective, especially when dealing with hot topics like the actions and words of Iran’s ‘hardline’ president? Of course, there are many folks out there who understand that news= one perspective. There are also many out there who read a headline and digest it as fact. This morning there is an article called "Iran’s President Calls for Purge of Liberal and Secular Professors." Search Google News and you’ll see this headline or a slight variation of it over and over again; the story that follows is exactly the same.
The activity for the week is this: take a look at a story like the one mentioned above and try to find an article about it from another perspective. This morning, I went to Google and entered the last name of Iran’s president, Ahmadinejad, and hit return. I then selected NEWS from the options above. I searched through the results for an article that was not exactly the same. Only found one or two. "Heads of Universities Must Not Be Involved in Politics: President," from the Islamic Republic News Agency. Somewhere inbetween these articles lies a balanced perspective.
The two articles follow:
Islamic Republic News Agency
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a meeting held on Tuesday, cautioned heads of universities to stay out of politics.
Addressing a group of outstanding university students on the occasion of National Youth Day, Ahmadinejad said his government was trying to reduce the tendency to bring politics into the management and affairs of Iranian universities.
"Today, students have the right to strongly criticize their president (Ahmadinejad) for the continued presence of liberal and secular professors in the country’s universities," Ahmadinejad added.
He described Iranian youth as "unique" for their spectacular talents and intelligence rarely found in their counterparts in other parts of the world.
"Iranian youth are becoming more progressive with every passing day in the fields of science and technology," Ahmadinejad said, adding that Iran’s young generation should naturally play a major role in national development.
A.P.
TEHRAN, Iran Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Tuesday for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country’s universities, urging students to return to 1980s-style radicalism.
"Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a meeting with a group of students.
Ahmadinejad complained that reforms in the country’s universities were difficult to accomplish and that the educational system had been affected by secularism for the last 150 years. But, he added: "Such a change has begun."
The president, in his role as head of the country’s Council of Cultural Revolution, does have the authority to make such changes. But his comments Tuesday seemed designed more to encourage hard-line students to begin a pressure campaign on their own, thus forcing universities to oust the teachers.
Iran retired dozens of liberal university professors and teachers earlier this year. And last November, Ahmadinejad’s administration for the first time named a cleric to head the country’s oldest institution of higher education, Tehran University, despite protests by students.
Ahmadinejad is widely believed to need to jockey between various interest groups in Iran, at a time when hard-liners increasingly control more of the top rungs of government but still encounter resistance from parts of the public at large. Moderates also still remain in the government.
But Tuesday’s comments seemed to follow a campaign promise by Ahmadinejad to develop a more Islamic-oriented country. Since taking office last August, he has also replaced pragmatic veterans in the government with former military commanders and inexperienced religious hard-liners.
Ahmadinejad’s aim appears to be installing a new generation of rulers who will revive the fundamentalist goals pursued in the 1980s under the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. Shortly after the revolution, Iran fired hundreds of liberal and leftist university teachers and expelled numerous students.
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