Iran’s Press TV will not be allowed to operate out of Jerusalem, the Government Press Office said on Tuesday, responding to a job posting by the propaganda outlet for a “news reporter” based in Israel’s capital.
There is “no way” that anyone working for Press TV will receive accreditation as a journalist, the GPO told HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog that discovered the job ad.
On Monday, HonestReporting revealed on X that “the Islamic Republic of Iran is hiring a news reporter for its English-language Press TV in ‘Al Quds (Palestine).’ Someone who can maintain their ‘high level of journalistic’ standards and ‘editorial principles.’”
“Social media - do your thing,” the NGO tweeted, sharing the link to Press TV’s LinkedIn post.
According to HonestReporting, “Press TV’s channel has over the years given a platform to a wide array of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and Holocaust deniers.
“Its website also published an article titled, ‘Palestinian suffrage in Israel worse than WWII Jewish plight.’ A leitmotif of Press TV‘s reporting is that ‘Zionists’ and the ‘Jewish Banking Cartel’ control U.S. politics. The outlet also ran a poll implying that the ‘9/11 incident’ was staged by the U.S. to ‘tarnish the image of Islam’ and be used as a pretext to wage wars in the Middle East,” the organization noted in 2021.
Update:
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 27, 2024
Israel's Government Press Office told @HonestReporting that "there is no way" a Press TV reporter would be issued press credentials. https://t.co/1e4oCpEYkF
In an article published on its website on Tuesday, Press TV accused HonestReporting of being “funded by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad” and orchestrating a “smear campaign” against Tehran.
“Press TV...has been a fearless advocate of Palestinian rights and has played an instrumental role in exposing the Israeli atrocities in the occupied territories,” the regime-run propaganda site claimed.
Late last year, the Israeli government approved emergency regulations allowing hostile foreign channels to be prevented from operating in the Jewish state during the ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza.
Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi subsequently signed an order banning the activities of Al-Mayadeen, a Hezbollah-affiliated television station based in Beirut.
Like Press TV and Qatar’s Al Jazeera network, Al Mayadeen had been accused of serving as a propaganda channel for Hamas following its Oct. 7 mass slaughter of Israeli civilians in the northwestern Negev region.
“Broadcasts such as these identify with the enemy while harming state security and will be blocked. Al Mayadeen’s channel’s broadcasts and reports serve the despicable terrorist organizations, and the time has come for a reckoning with them,” Karhi said in November.
