Iranians Are Much Talked About On Sunday Morning TV, But Never Heard From

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clarified his position on the two-state solution in an interview after his election win with Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC on March 19, 2015.
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Sunday morning news television is where Washington sets its media agenda for the week and, more importantly, defines its narrow range of conventional, acceptable viewpoints. It's where the Serious People go to spout their orthodoxies and, through the illusion of "tough questioning," disseminate DC-approved bipartisan narratives. Other than the New York Times front page, Sunday morning TV was the favorite tool of choice for Bush officials and neocon media stars to propagandize the public about Iraq; Dick Cheney's media aide, Catherine Martin, noted in a memo that the Tim-Russert-hosted Meet the Press lets Cheney "control message," and she testified at the Lewis Libby trial that, as a result, "I suggested we put the vice president on Meet the Press, which was a tactic we often used. It's our best format."

Over the last couple months, the Sunday morning TV shows -- NBC 's Meet the Press, CBS's Face The Nation, ABC's This Week, Fox's News Sunday, and CNN's State of the Union -- have focused on a deal with Iran as one of their principal topics. In doing so, they have repeatedly given a platform to fanatical anti-Iran voices, including Israeli officials such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They have sycophantically interviewed officials from the U.S.-supported, anti-Iranian Gulf tyrannies such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan; two weeks ago, Chuck Todd interviewed Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Adel Al-Jubeir and didn't utter a word about extreme Saudi repression, but actually did ask this "question":

Are the foot rubs we Americans are giving to you to your liking, Mr. Saudi Ambassador, or do you feel that we must make them more vigorous? In the last three weeks alone, Meet the Press has interviewed the Israeli Prime Minister, the Saudi Ambassador, and the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.

Meanwhile, their "expert media panels" almost always feature the most extremist "pro-Israel," anti-Iran American pundits such as Jeffrey Goldberg, who played a leading role in spreading false claims about Iraq under the guise of "reporting" (and only became more beloved and credible in DC for it), was dubbed Netanyahu's "faithful stenographer" by New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, and even joined the Israeli military in his young adulthood. In 2014, Face the Nation interviewed Netanyahu five times and featured his "faithful stenographer," Goldberg, three times; in 2015, the CBS show just last week interviewed Netanyahu and has already hosted Goldberg four times. ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos actually features supreme neocon propagandist Bill Krsitol as a regular "ABC News Contributor" and has also interviewed Netanyahu. And that's to say nothing of the "hawkish," AIPAC-loyal and/or evangelical members of the U.S. Congress who are fanatically devoted to Israel and appear literally almost every week on these programs.

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