Press Freedom and Journalism Challenges

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A prices are rising. traraffic in the crucial strait of Hormuz is being disrupted And there doesn't seem to be an end in sight To help us make sense of this and what could be next, I'm joined by Jason Rion, director of press freedom Initiatives at the Washington Post Jason has a perspective on this conflict that few others do He's an Iranian American, a former Tehran correspondent And in twenty fourteen, he was detained in Iran's notorious Avin prison, accused by the regime of being an American spy Jason spent nearly a year and a half in prison as world powers were embroiled in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program This year marks a decade since Jason's release in a prisoner swab Jason, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the bigig interview. Thanks for having me, Kany. I appreciate. Dellighted that you're here. So let's start with the latest. We are talking on a Wednesday about a week before this episode is going to come out Right now, there is what I would describe, I think, as a fragile ceasefire in place. Questions remain over how long it will hold. The U.S. has not ruled out additional strikes And there are fears, especially with Iran's latest statements that the war could spread not only beyond its borders, beyond the borders of the Middle East. That's the big concern as it stands today, what is your sense and your interpretation of the situation right now I want to start by saying that you know we've been at some level of conflict with Iran since nineteen seventy nine.ight. So we've never been at peace with the Islamic Republic. One of the first things that they did was take American diplomats and held them hostage in our embassy in Tehran So this enmity, animosity is not new I think where we are right now and this ceasefire If I had to guess, I don't think that the Trump administration, President Trump in particular wants to attack Iran again. It seems pretty obvious to me from his statements, right. I was going do it last night, but you know, I got talked out of my mind. Yeah Yeah. So you know, I think it's pretty clear that the economic pain that we're feeling at home has changed his attitude and desire for regime change If that was his desire in the first place. I don't think that if you asked him, you'd have a clear answer of why he got into this in the first place That being said, I mean, I think Israel, in particular, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to keep going. I think he's the wild card in this situation. and then also level of pain and suffering that the Iranian regime is ready to absorb and ready to force its public to absorb I think it is beyond what we Imagined rightight I also don't want to conflate the people of Iran with the regime. Of course. The regime is ready to keep taking hits. to keep fighting. They've been in a fighting posture with the United States, but with other countries for their entirety of their existence for the last forty seven years That's not to say that they want to keep fighting I don't think it's necessarily in their long term interest to do so. So I think, you know, we will see skirmishes It's pretty incredible that Israel and the United States were able to take out so many top layers of the Iranian leadership both last summer and then in the strikes that started eararlier this year. Maybe even more credible though, is that the regime has continued to function. Well, and this is actually a question I have for you. I remember several months ago when these twenty twenty six U. S Israel attacks happened. They took out the suupreme leader They made a big show of it. It was a big sort of public show of force on their part. And I remember sort of thinking, but Surely the Iranian regime has layers upon layers of succession planning. And indeed, they did I mean, I'm a news junkie, but certainly by no means an expert in Iran, but it was very obvious to me that that was the case and would be the case. Did the United States and Israel simply miss something there I think that the our analysis of Iran And Washington leaves a lot to be desired there were a lot of people in the the sort of foreign policy, the expert space who said, this Supreme leader has the totalitarian leader of Islamic theocracy. and when he dies, it'll all fall apart. Well, that was never going to happen. Yeah. It doesn't mean that there isn't dissent. It doesn't mean that people want to see this regime perpetuate But There is a very big power structure that is built with Iranian ingenuity and creativity, which means you know there's horse trading, jockeying, lots of vying for influence and power within that system. And they have lots of guns Yeah. So they're able to maintain control for I don't want to say the foreseeable future. I don't want to put an expiration date on it, but they have control right now And I think that what we missed was the idea that an aerial campaign that was frankly, incredibly successful. and took out lots and lots of leaders beyond the Spreme L leader, a lot of officials For former speaker of Parliament, who was main negotiator in earlier nuclear negotiations and many others that that would lead to somehow An opening and President Trump talked about this for people to rise up. Well, how are people who are unarmed? and unable to connect to the internet. And I talk about this a lot to the extent that people sayay is it really that simple? G people back online? No, it's not that simple But the fact that we're not able to help them stay online And internet access is like oxygen as it is anywhere else in the world at this point. Going back to two thousand nine when And I want to talk about President Ahmeddinajad because he's back in the news again this week, right. But going back to his contested reelection in two thousand nine, the first time that the Islamic Republic cut off the internet The United States has said we're not gonna let this happen again. R And do whatever we can to keep them online, right And your audience and your colleagues at Wired know a lot more about how the interternet works than I do But we have technological capability to help people stay online in ways that we didn't have seventeen, eighteen years ago whether it's Starlink or direct to sell satellite internet access These things exist. And they're a hell of a lot cheaper than the missiles and bombs that we have been the American taxpayer has been subsidizing. And I wanted to ask you about the Internet blackout. We'll talk more about that, but I wanted to back up for a minute to talk about This moment in February, right? The U. S. and Israel launched strikes in Iran. For you as an Iranian American to go from protests that felt there was potential real potential for a monumental change even maybe a step towards democracy to what is unfolding now You wrote an article about sort of the excitement and the hope you were feeling as Iranians took to the streets and protest against the regime fast forward to now we're in a very different scenario. I want to acknowledge that the administration did a better job of acknowledging the reality that Iranians were rising up against there repressive regime better than previous administrations had and faster. So the idea that Donald Trump wanted to have the backs of protesterors, right support protesterors, it's a nice notion. And it would have been a nice about face for a president who has Unfortunately, going back to his first term done nothing but make the lives of Iranian people harder. There's a travel ban against people of several countries. The first iteration of that, which he did almost immediately coming into office in twenty seventeen It was fewer than ten countries that were affected at that time. But if you looked at the data, more than half of visa applicants would have been from Iran you can't really say that you're supporting the aspirisations of Iranian civil society and Institute of Travel Ban that blocks them from studying in our universities and taking part in all the wonderful things about the United States not helping them stay on the internet when they're blocked from it I would like to see the United States which is still The strongest power in the world, right? If you take all of our assets as a superpower, militarily, economically, but really importantly, culturally, and in terms of soft power. and resources that we can provide to support freeing up societies. I'd like us to better employ that last bit And I think that's the missing piece of the puzzle here Well, then in terms of the way the way of going about it, I'm curious for your take on What was the goal here? What is the goal here? Did they know, did they know? And I think going back to the very first days of this and then to the first set of attacks last June You know, this question of is there daylight between the Israeli and American plans for this And U. S. officials absolutely no daylight. You know, we're in this together. We have the same , I don't think that was ever true I don't even think they realize what the go is, right And in a situation where you have not had your own diplomatic ties with a country the size and scope of Iran We have ninety three million people biggest combined oil and gas reserves in the world top three national security challenge for half a century, right But it's really like a political football. We should have a national policy towards Iran, not one that changes every two or four years based on elections that we have in this country. So I think we missed a lot and we continue to miss a lot. And if the reporting that the New York Times, had about Israel and the United States hoping to free up Mahmd Ahmedinajah, the former president from house arrest to potentially lead Iran after the regime fell. It's just really Quixotic and It's kind of ridiculous. Yeah is. If those are the plans, then there's not real real. there was no plan. There was nogan plan. No plan. Now, you were accused of espionage by the regime. You were detained for five hundred forty four days. Watching all of this unfold now from the U S. I mean, I'm sure mixed feelings doesn't even begin to describe what you're feeling, but you know so much more about how brutal this regime can be to its own people. Then obviously the average American, I would say, you know, then ninety nine percent of people given what you went through Talk me about that. I mean, what should Americans know about the Iranian regime What they should know is that It is incredibly rutal to its own population It's capable of metetting out Chaos and violence people in the region And in isolated instances peopleeople on U. S. soil on European soil but that ultimately this regime is not A match for the United States and our allies, right? I mean, I'm not going to call our paper tiger because you can see that it's holding its own. But they fight asymmetrically. Sometimes we say that that is, you know, a sign that they are you know, a sponsor of terror. and you know, I'm not going to get into those designations But really what it means is if you force them into conventional ways of dealing with problems They can't really do it The future of that country has to be in the hands of the people of that country The hands of the people of that country are tied in multiple ways And over a twenty five year period that we've recognized their desire for change going back to the late nineteen nineties when they did Mohamedatami, a reformer who espoused a much more open approach to the world Every time they've had the opportunity in these elections, they've gone for the person who says, we want to open up the society. Our path towards success is opening up If you're looking at it on balance We haven't really done anything to support those aspirations. And I would argue that every time we've gotten involved, It's kind of set that clock back. Yeah If I think about, you know the early two thousands when I first started traveling to Iran, I made my first trip to Iran in the spring of two thousand one. U before nine eleven, right And then six months later, after nine eleven. And then in two thousand three, I moved there for better part of a year going back and forth until ultimately I moved there in two thousand nine There were many moments when the society I think was closer to opening up and really claiming some autonomy and control from this regime And at every turn we had sanctions or a military attack or cyber attacks that it setet those things back How much of what's happening in Iran right now are we actually hearing about? I mean, look, even when I was there before I was arrested I can't say that there was sort of a flourishing journalistic You know, there's a handful of us working there And then local media At that time, let's say there were twenty foreign correspondents based there. It's a country of ninety three million people It's massive. It's huge. And from the day that I was arrested until now, twelve years later the access of independent international media onlyly Srk We don't have good access into it We don't have good windows into it. And I think When I look at the information war that's being fought on social media And also, you know, lots of deep fakes and very difficult landscape to try and verify information from It's very confusing for the average American. And I think if you look at the Israel Gaza conflict post october seventh and Ukraine, Russia war, very similar This is the first one that America is actually directly involved in Ordinary people when they watch this news without any context and without real open access to information from that country, how do you expect them to make sense of it? Well, and this was a question I had for you was the quote unquote mem wars, right? sort of the social media propaganda war that's playing out. You have The Trump administration putting out like just these bizarre like movie clip propaganda, you know, warmongering videos, you then have, you know pro Iranian activists, young creators putting out things like these Lego videos, I don't know if you've seen them. cove them How are you seeing sort of the propaganda piece of this conflict? I would first of all say that Iranian propaganda from the time I was detained until now has improved leaps and bounds in efficacy. Yeah. my impression would be and correct me if you think I'm wrong, would be that more Americans probably saw those Lego videos then saw the Trump administration's bizarre propaganda. And not just Americans, people from all over the world. Sure. Look, I don't think that there are guys sitting in Tehran who have a full understanding of the cultural contexts that we're dealing with here They've done a great job of outsourcing thatever who whoever is doing that. and It's less reactive, you know, when I was taken And I've seen this play out in other instances of hostages that they've taken There's just like a kind of a immediate campaign. to sully the reputation of that person. You know, we've got this evidence of X, Y, and Z The story that they tell is very much from their own point of view for their own audience, for their own domestic audience. This is different. This is Re trolling, right? Yeah. And it works. It makes people think to themselves, wow, you know they bring the Epstein files into it and gun violence into our country, you know, talk about those things on their state television But talk about it in their from their own ideological lens that this is ungodly, this is you know, un Islamic. Look at, you know how those infidels live over there This something very different. It's designed to be consumed by Young people here And in that way, it's not only more potentially effective but also more radicalizing I want to talk about this the interternet blackout and for listeners who are not sort of following this closely Someone living in Iran right now can they not do? what can they not access that we take for granted here? Look In normal times They can access almost everything through VPN's Th thingsings like Twitter and you know, Facebook TikTok, you know, highly filtered. so, you know, it takes some time and some doing to get online. but Instagram, for example, has been mostly open since twenty twelve, right? L And it's something that a lot of Iranian businesses rely on as a means to advertise because it's really the only space that they had Right now with this internet blackout Almost all of that is Shut off It's also a country that relies and has for at least a decade on telegram Right. So, you know, that's a way that people have been sharing information and communicating for over a decade, that's been taken away from them You do have a handful of people who have what they call white SIM cards, right? peopleeople who do have access. And So anybody that you see posting from Iran right now You should be very skeptical about what they're saying because they are doing it with the or acceptance of the state. That's what that would mean in the White S. Yeah And I'll tell you over the last twelve months There have been a handful of instances where I'll get a DM from from somebody in Iran or see somebody post a story and then immediately try and communicate with them and maybe have a few messages back and forth before it gets cut. I remember very clearly in the wake of that two thousand line election and the prrotest the violence And the internet shutdown that followed it. How disorienting that is onnce you've, you know become so accustomed to it. And I can tell you, in a year and a half that I was in prison, I didn't have access to the internet. And it's incredibly disorent' like isolating It's so isolating. and it's also You don't Reize until you don't have it How often you rely on it to answer a question in a day Yeah. Fr things that you need to know to more mundane pieces of information. know Wh was the name of the actor in that movie? that Who won the World Series in nineteen eighty? Those sorts of things that are sort of standard parts of your life You're starved of all of that, right? And imagine that on a mass scale I've seen a couple of really good essays We're former political prisoners. I've written about into The feeling of imprisonment that not having access to the internet sort of replicates for them Yeah. And I talk about this over and over and over again hoping that someone in a position of power in the United States is listening and think to themselves, well maybe there is something that we can do. Well and what do that they're not doing. So I mean, look, I think the silly idea is to activate and drop a lot of starlingss from me. C on I would support a contract, you know, a US government contract to do that because it would cost less than a couple of these missiles. Yeah, sure. And we own the airspace at this point You know, they don't have air defenses And then, you know, the use of this I think every cell phone Every smartphone produced after twenty twenty or twenty twenty one has the ability to connect to satellite, internet requires flipping switches. To do that, we require an act of Congress or an executive order. and probably some guarantees to cellular providers that if you provide cellular access to Iran We're not going to sanction you We're not going to enforce this. Do you have any educated guess or informed hypothesis about why these very simple Switches are not being I just don't think it's on people's radar screens and I don't think that you should connect a country of how many people ninety ninety three million people back to the internet. I think it's one not necessarily on their radar screens to not a priority. because I think if the right people knew about it, they'd do it today. Yeah. Well, hopefully someone's listening. I mean, seems exceedingly obvious. It's pretty obvious Right? And it's one of these things where We put people on the moon, right? We've figured out a lot of much more complex challenges This is a country of ninety three million people The smartphone penetration is incredibly high. People use these things. It's kind of a obvious piece of the puzzle that hasn't been put in place yet What are we all missing in all the talk about the straight and gas prices and the Trump administration? What are we missing about Th those ninety three million people, right? The daily lives, the aspirations, the future. None of us are immune to you know rising costs and how that impacts our lives But it is a very minor I don't want to say inc convenience because I know it's more than that, but it's minor in comparison with the matters of life and death and Liberty these people Hr faced with on a daily basis have so many instances of Iranians stepping forward and saying, Hey, look, we want to connect with the outside world We want to be able to study in your universities. We want to be able to learn from your institutions. We want you to come and invest in our country. Actually, the regime even courts foreign investment. and you know, I would say, hey, foreign company, don't send your staff there until they make some guarantees that they're not going to take people hostage because they do that all the time So it's a very complicated situation because there is not a good guy in this story. The good guy is the people of Iran. The United States of America Islamic Republic of Iran Israel neeither of those three entities have the interests of the people of Iran in their agenda And I defy you to show me otherwise. I mean, a lot of people, we love we love our people or, you know, the Israelis or Americans say, No, we've got their back. We said No, you haven't You haven't done anything credible to support them. How do I know that? Because their life gets worse and worse and worse? And you can't just pin it on one group The Islamic Republic will depend it on America We pin it on the Islamic Republic. In the middle, people are saying, hey, look, just help us And there' been many, many, many people who've said consistently If you're going to start this war keep going uil the end because they're going to treat us much worse. You know, when there is external Force pressure. on an authoritarian state and the Islamic Republic is a prime example Their response, their reaction is always takeake out. more revenge and force on their population It's not an act of vengeance. It's an act of survival If the people sense weakness from the air They're going to respond with incredible force against them on the ground. And that's what they've been doing. The execution rate is as high this year As it was last year and last year was the highest rate of executions that they've had since the early nineteen eighties, right? It's not rocket science you know, unfortunately, I know and love a lot of people in that country and I'm not willing to concede that their lives can be collateral damage in the ideological struggle between big powers We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back I want to share something that really caught my attention as a parent. 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What does that mean for the Iranian people, for the geopolitical order? I'm bullish on the future of the Iranian people. But when I say that, It's a country that's existed for Basically three thousand years. The short term prospects don't look particularly good We have to have an approach to dealing with this country and supporting its society. Two separate things defefang this regime. Put it to sleep if we can but not at the expense of the civil society and the livelihoods and life of the people in it. And unfortunately, this is not an answer that is very satisfying to most people. This is not a two month or a three month or a five, you know month proposition It's something that we should have been investing in for twenty years or more. And we haveven itt I engage with people in the U. S. government pretty regularly on these issues You'd be shocked at how few Iran experts are for a challenge of its magnitude Demed it this massive challenge We really don't put the same kind of resources into having expertise in it, having Persian speakers, you know in government There probably more people who do strategic communications on Belgium than there is on Iran. This is not just a Trump thing. This go back many administrations. Why? I think we have this approach to countries like Iran and Cuba maybe a handful of others that were these very staunch allies of ours that flipped through revolutions. And there's a pride element to it that these regimes replaced client states of ours. and did so while given us the finger and have been able to survive notot thrive And it you know, it's ultimately the people of these countries that pay for it. Now, you haven't been back to Iran in I think over ten years. Yeah Under what conditions would you feel safe You know, I've thought about this a lot and I've thought about it a lot more recently. I was at dinner recently with my wife and a human rights lawyer who defends lots of Iranian civil society actors and journalists. and another friend who was recently freed from imprisonment and we were talking about our collective desire to visit Iran again. I think that Unfortunately, in my case The regime did such a of a long term propaganda campaign against me. After I was released, and twenty nineteen produced a thirty episode television series on their state television at that time. Aout you? Yeah I wasn't Jason Rion, I was Michael Hashemian. And, you know, you see the pictures of it, you know, it's clearly supposed to be me. although you know, the character wears a trench coat and the assc and has one of those cigarettes on the long Well at least look really cool. I don't think the guy looked very cool. kind of It's too bad. But anyway, I mean it was It was the sort of thing that I joke about it and I joked about it at the time. But you know, I was getting incredible death threats Yeah. And you know and they re air it. So I think that I don't know that I'll be able to go back. I hope that I can. I hope things change dramatically. I get lots and lots of messages from people that are very positive inside the country. I meet people all the time who've recently left Iran and arrived in the West. and You know, I think In all those interactions, people have shown a layer of knowledge and complexity about the circumstances that I faced And that's enncouraging justust knowing their track record of hostage taking and Targeted assassinations Sadly I just don't think it's happening anytime soon. I want to turn for a minute to talk about press freedom bigigger picture. You've been a longtime advocate for press freedom around the world. It's a cause that's important to me too How are you looking at that imperative in this political moment? right in the U S and abroad in the context of the Trump administration? I mean, what stands out to you? What should listeners know? So the decline of press freedoms in democratic societies has been going on since beforefore Trump Mhm Yeah Right. And in this country going back to September eleventh and beyond and I think in a lot of instances in other parts of the world They've used the national security protocols that we created to suspend Miranda rights and due process They've kind of weaponized this against journalists and others in their countries, right? So when I was taken and said, Okaykay, you're being accused of national security crimes, we don't have to give you access to a lawyer. And you know, Id get into these long conversations about you know, Guantanamo Bay with my interrogators, right? And you can see that like they're using this as a justification And then I think there's been this sort of trend of dehumanizing journalists. Oftentimes female journalists Maria Ressa, a Nobel Prize winning journalist from from the Philippines, Rana Au, a Washington Post contributor from India all designed Not only to silence the individual, but to silence others and to deter others from getting into this work. Then there's this whole other element of the problem which is economic and the business models of journalism. You guys understand this very well here. too. we deal with it all the time. Yeah. And I think the ecosystem of Press freedom defenders. And when I say that, it's a big community of individuals and organizations catching up to the problems at hand. You know, there was a time when A strong letter from a U. S senator was all that was required. That' a point. you know, Or you know a statement of condemnation Those things don't do anything anymore. They take journalists. prison because it's audacious. because it's designed to scare people into silence So over the past few years and recently at the Washington Post in developing ways to support mostly journalists in exile. because it's been this tidal wave thousands upon thousands of journalists an almost endless number of instances of journalists who have either been imprisoned or have been forced to flee their homelands because of the work that they do finding their ways to to freedom in Europe, but oftentimes in the United States as well then new hurdles for them when they get here. with an NGO that handles a lot of the immigration challenges of people in those circumstances. And we've been able to get what we call humanitarian parole which is sort of like an emergency entry into the United States. If you get here, then you have to apply for asylum. And once you apply for asylum not when the application is approved, but once it starts being processed It's another hundred and fifty days before you can get a work authorization. You can't open a bank account without work authorization. Yeah. Without a bank account, you can't least rent an apartment. I mean, the barriers of entry into a life in the United States are really high at this point. They didn't always used to be that way. So we're trying to create some tools, mechanisms, opportunities for journalists in those circumstances to not only get out of harm's way and get themselves up and running in the United States, to help them tool up so that they can incredibly And within the framework that O media systems have constructed for itself contribute to the work that we do That's my big goal right now when it comes to press freedom takeake people who have been spat out by the countries that they're from because of the coverage of those countries. places where We can't even send reporters to. Yeah and then help them equip them to support our news gathering I think it's really vital And I think in the kind of creator journalism space I really believe that the future of both the creator space, but also the traditional one has to come together, some hybridating, using the benefits and assets and resources that we have in our newsrooms with the nimbleness, the creativity and ingenuity of independent journalists If we're going to survive We're going to have to survive together, I think. I don't know if everybody agrees, but that's me. I have to ask you about the elephant in the room, when we're talking about press freedom, we're talking about international reporting, we're talking about the business of journalism Your owner at the Washington Post has not been without criticism. You know mass layoffs, including in your international bureaus an opinion section that has been pivoted in an overtly ideological way, I would argue Do you feel like you have the support at the Washington Post and the support at the Bezos level to do the work that you so deeply believe in? I haven't seen Jeff Bezos in several years When I was released from prison, came and picked me up in Germany. I remember and we've had, you know opportunities to to talk about, you know, some of these issues, not about the layoffs, which I think was I'm only gutting for the entire organization, but for readers as well. But on a kind of very direct level He's engaged with me indirectly. on specific cases of exile journalists and how we can support them through editors, other intermediaries So I do think that for this particular work that I've been developing at the post, there's been institutional support And that support has grown over the last couple of years to the extent that we piloted a training program of exileed journalists. But I think that there's still a lot to be worked out and figured out conversations about whether the post and other news organizations should be considered a public trust or for profit businesses. att this point, it's a for profit business And I work for it. Yeah likeike so you I know the feeling. So you know, I think whether I feel good about the direction that it's going or not is I don't want to say irrelevant But on this particular patch of trying to answer the questions of how we make this work viable, how we continue to cover places where we can't send people anymore How we turn the lights back on in places where they've been turned off I can only say that that particular lane has I don't want to say endless support because it's not this is incredibly difficult and expensive and totally complicated work But we're testing things out and we're testing out new models that if they work I think we might be in a good spot I'd be lying though, if I didn't say that I watched so many incredible colleagues have their jobs eliminated only to see them move on to our direct competitors and I'm proud to see them continuing to do incredible work that there's an opportunity Some of them come back and work for us in the future Jeff if you're listen Think about it We're going to take a quick break. 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