What I’m about to write is so outlandish, inexplicable and downright unbelievable, I will do my best to convince you it’s true.
On Friday afternoon, in the midst of massive protests across Iran that were raging for days (and several hours before the Venezuela story broke), I went on The New York Times home page to check out the coverage.
Lots and lots of stories, but nothing on the uprisings.
I was so stunned I had to go back and go through every headline carefully. Nothing.
Impossible, I thought.
Then I went back again and this time I counted the number of headlines. By the time I got to the very bottom, where things like the crossword puzzles are deposited, I had added up more than 80 headlines on everything except for the heart-wrenching protests in Iran.
Finally, desperate for any semblance of sanity, I clicked on the “world” link in the menu bar and there it was, with, of course, a Trump twist: “Trump Says U.S. Is ‘Locked and Loaded’ if Iran Kills Protesters.”
That was it.
For the world’s newspaper of record, a historic protest movement unfolding in real time for a people desperately seeking their freedom was not worthy of its home page.
At the same time, I went on the BBC home page to check their coverage. Again, nothing.
“Why has the BBC ignored the Iranian uprisings?” Spiked reporter Mary Dejevsky asked. “The mainstream media blackout on these seismic protests is utterly inexcusable.”
I did find some normalcy in the other New York paper, the right-leaning New York Post, which had three different stories on the protests featured prominently on its home page.
What gives?
I read numerous posts on social media accusing the left of ignoring anything that can make Iran look bad.
“Criticizing Iran, one of Hamas’s chief sponsors, would mean admitting the brutality they have spent years laundering just to demonize Israel,” Hen Mazzig posted on X. “So they look away. Women are beaten. Protesters are executed. And the megaphones go quiet. At least they are consistent. When outrage depends on blaming Jews, justice is optional.”
Even if this is true, however, when it comes to media coverage it should be immaterial. Making the reporting of such a consequential story “optional” is journalistic malpractice.
Put yourself in the shoes of any of these protesters who are risking their lives to free themselves from the clutches of an evil regime. What must they be thinking right now as they are clashing with troops on the streets: “Is anyone out there on our side?”
As Kathleen Hayes posted on X, “Masses of people are defying one of the most repressive, misogynist, genocidal and terroristic regimes on the planet: the Islamic Republic of Iran. Western leftists, you self-anointed Right Side of History, where art thou?”
In a Spectator piece titled “The keffiyeh crew’s curious silence on Iran,” Brendan O’Neill delves into the outrage:
“And just like that, the left loses interest in the Middle East. In 2025, they spoke of little else. They culturally appropriated Arab headwear, poncing about in China-made keffiyehs. They wrapped themselves in the Palestine colours. They frothed day and night about a ‘murderous regime’ – you know who. And yet now, as a Middle Eastern people revolt against their genuinely repressive rulers, they’ve gone schtum.
“What is it about revolts in Iran that rankle the activist class? These people love to yap about ‘resistance’ and ‘oppression’. Yet the minute men and women in Iran rise up in resistance against the oppressive theocracy that immiserates and subjugates them, they go coy. Their solidarity evaporates. Their flag-waving ends. They go back to tweeting about TV.”
It’s one thing, of course, for hypocritical activists to show their shameless side; it’s quite another for a media company like The New York Times to emulate them.
When we wonder why trust in media has reached an all-time low, the home pages of the Times and the BBC on January 2, 2026, should be Exhibit A.
