The Neda "Myth"

Hanna Rosin chides me for posting an e-mail:

I do not begrudge this “doctor” his narrative. But it should not be reported by respectable American news sites as confirmation of a fact. It is an artifact in the construction of a martyr story, just like everything else in the story of Neda: Her name, which means “voice” in Farsi (now silenced), her age, first reported as 16, but actually 27, the final close-up of her face, blood streaming from her mouth, one eye opened. In their excitement over the role of technology in building democracy, American sites have been gullibly reporting every Twitter and post in support of Mir Hussein Moussavi, conveniently forgetting Moussavi’s own bloody past. Even in the age of Twitter, confirming a murder is not something we do by e-mail.

Here is the LA Times report on the death. It confirms the details from the email. I've premised all tweets as provisional.