The Power of TV News: An Insider’s Perspective on the Launch of BBC Persian TV in the Year of the Iranian Uprising

Abstract

“Well, of course you’re from MI6. You’re a spy.” … “Pass the pomegranate juice, please.” The accusation was made to the director of the BBC’s World Service, Nigel Chapman. He and I and the BBC’s senior Persian analyst, Sadegh Saba, were sitting in the headquarters of the Iranian President, Mahmud Ahmadinejad. His head of communications and senior advisor, Mehdi Kallur, didn’t beat about the bush. The pomegranate juice — and dates — and nuts — became the segues between different parts of a symphony. A two‐and‐a‐half‐hour symphony. Can you imagine President Obama’s senior advisor giving a foreign broadcaster two and a half hours? Not in a month of Sundays. Nothing’s quite what it seems in Iran, as I was about to discover all over again…and again.