Comments
Has anyone felt like the news out of this war has been more tightly controlled than other recent conflicts by multiple orders of magnitude? Russia/Ukraine news is everywhere, Israel/Lebanon, etc, but this one is zipped up tightly.
The platforms/news orgs must all be getting pretty serious orders on reporting, because even Gulf Wars I and II had more getting out.
By hallh 2026-03-083:38 Internet access in Iran is still tightly controlled, so there's probably much less organic content on social media, etc to report on.
By bbddg 2026-03-083:34 Yes for sure. It’s not easy to find reporting about the extent of attacks on either side of this war.
American/English social media in general are being gutted alive in the past few months.
By spwa4 2026-03-0920:01 And inside Iran, the regime blocks the internet networks and shoots at people bypassing any kind of block ...
By alephnerd 2026-03-083:36 > Has anyone felt like the news out of this war has been more tightly controlled than other recent conflicts...
Internet access in Iran has been spotty after the massacres in January.
Also, even Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza-Lebanon news and "OSINT" is tightly controlled - the legal, logistical, and technical tools needed to limit access and control of information are well in the reach of any nation now, and even most police departments across much of the world.
By gerash 2026-03-111:25 Planet labs has also been banned from publishing damages to US bases and Israel.
I suspect it all means it doesn’t look very good for the US
By polotics 2026-03-089:42 Yes indeed. The most revealing was when a journalist asked Mr T about his opinion about Russia helping Iranian forces right now to target the Gulf's oil capacity, there was an amazing outburst against that journalist and his stupid question. Amazing.
By fuzzfactor 2026-03-085:52 >news out of this war has been more tightly controlled
Well at least one person hates the free flow of information enough to plant their flag of choice on this very comment thread, if not many others.
By roywiggins 2026-03-083:592 reply Iran is not welcoming to Western reporters, so Western press aren't pointing their TV cameras out their hotel windows to show the explosions like in 2003. And locals can't report other than in tiny snatches of text as the internet has been turned off in the country for ages, and one imagines operating a satphone in Iran right now would be a risky endeavor.
By compsciphd 2026-03-0910:31 As a simple example, read up on Bourdain's fixers/friends from his famous no reservations episode who were arrested by Iran as spies soon after the episode was filmed.
By roywiggins 2026-03-0816:29 (CNN now has a team reporting from Tehran: https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/08/world/video/fred-pleitgen-sha... )
By rmm78 2026-03-083:35 [dead]
By readitalready 2026-03-083:511 reply [flagged]
By roywiggins 2026-03-085:481 reply No, it didn't take several days for reporting to show up in major media:
By readitalready 2026-03-086:052 reply Yah that was never on their front pages or on their apps, probably hidden on an archival web page. I looked everywhere. Only found the story in a few places on Feb 28, the day it happened.
This is how they hide stories.
By roywiggins 2026-03-086:16 It was on the BBC front page by March 2nd, two days after it happened, probably less than 48 hours.
https://web.archive.org/web/20260302041747/https://www.bbc.c...
The NYT had coverage the day of.
You can see it on the front page in their "Live" coverage at the time:
I do think it was probably relatively underplayed in Western press, you can eg see it on the front page day-of pretty prominently on Al Jazeera:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260228182044/https://www.aljaz...
But the western press dragging their feet at covering victims of America's foreign wars is not down to being pro-Israel, no.
By sergiomattei 2026-03-083:332 reply Zipped up tightly? This has been all over mainstream news outlets, social media, everywhere.
We are commenting on a submission linked to the New York Times.
By roywiggins 2026-03-083:43 Compared to, say, the coverage from Ukraine during February 2022, actual information getting out from the ground is sparser. Or the opening "shock and awe" campaign in Iraq in 2003, there were Western and international media in Baghdad reporting on it in real time, shooting video from their hotels:
The reason why isn't really a mystery: Iran has never been exactly welcoming to Western media, and internet access there was intentionally shut off after the recent protests. There's plenty of coverage- it's front page everywhere- but a paucity of information.
It's all over social media, but hardly any of that is from Iranians in Iran, it's just people outside it like you and me mostly just yapping. Occasionally you'll hear something second-hand from someone with family in Iran who managed some brief connectivity.
They can't really not talk about it, it's a world war unfolding. It's going to affect every person alive. But as much as it can be, it is absolutely being mitigated in traditional media.
By scythe 2026-03-083:41 >The attacks, seen in videos circulating on social media and verified by The New York Times, appeared to be the first on Iran’s energy infrastructure since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran last weekend.
From the CNN: https://x.com/fpleitgenCNN/status/2030526805589762282?s=20
The ecological and health impacts of this are going to stay with the Iranian people for decades to come.
Edit: https://x.com/mamlekate/status/2030587809371668685?s=20
Left side is vinegar. Right side is rain. PH of 3
By ajewhere 2026-03-093:01 This is an insane crime, but somehow no one speaks up.
