Repeating The Party Line

Nahid Siamdoust reports on the media lock down in Iran:

On the way to the airport on Friday night, I witnessed how national television can affect ordinary Iranians, especially in the absence of other sources of information. When I started a conversation with my driver, he returned to me, almost verbatim, parts of the leader's speech as well as news reports that I, too, had seen on state TV. He said the leader was right, that it was impossible to rig 11 million votes and that those creating the chaos were foreign agitators. "The students claim five were killed in a raid to their dormitories. They showed one of the students who they claimed was dead. He was doing just fine and wasn't even a resident of that dormitory," the middle-aged driver from the southern city of Yazd said with evident sincerity.