TVNewsers Weigh In On Reporting From — And On — Iran

Variety‘s Sam Thielman interviews several tvnewsers on the challenges of reporting from Iran. Excerpts:

• ABC’s Jim Sciutto: “A few times we had people come up and say, ‘We’ve seen plainclothesmen looking at you, making phone calls,’ and then we’d have to move again.”

• CBS’s Elizabeth Palmer: “Most people in Iran have no access to facts — it’s a country that runs on rumor…[Mir Hossein] Mousavi sightings became like Elvis sightings.”

And on verifying video from Iran:

• NBC’s Richard Engel: “You see a video of a clash or a protest, and it could be five days old or it could be a video of a protest you’ve already seen from a different angle. It’s not ideal, but every conflict has its limitations.”

• CNN’s Parisa Khosravi, SVP of International Newsgathering: “We’re in email and phone communication with forces on the ground…We wait until we get two or three or four consistent reports on a story, and then we put [the video] up.”

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