Fars News Agency

The Fars News Agency is a news agency in Iran. While it describes itself as "Iran's leading independent news agency",[1] it is widely described by Western news media to be a "semi-official" news agency of the Government of Iran.[2][3][4] All its content is free content, Creative Commons licensed.[5]

Fars (Pars) News Agency
AbbreviationFNA
Formation2003 (2003)
TypeNews agency
Location
Official language
Persian
Managing Director
Payam Tirandaz
Editor in Chief
Mohsen Mahdian
Websiteen.farsnews.ir (in English)

History

Fars News Agency was founded in 2003.[6] In addition to Persian reporting, the agency also provides news in English,[7] Turkish,[8] Arabic,[9] and Dari.[10]

Notable stories

Interview with Egyptian president

In June 2012, Fars released an interview with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in which Morsi is said to have told Fars that he wanted to restore ties with Iran and wanted to "review" the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty.[11] Morsi later disputed the authenticity of the interview.[11] Fars responded by providing what it said was audio of the interview.[11] Arabic newscaster Al Arabiya quoted unnamed experts who said it was not Morsi's voice.[11]

Reposted story by The Onion

In September 2012, the agency picked up a story from The Onion, a satirical newspaper, about a supposed survey showing "an overwhelming majority of rural white Americans would rather vote for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than U.S. President Barack Obama in the upcoming U.S. elections".[12][13] The Iranian version copied the original word-for-word, even including a made-up quote from a fictional West Virginia resident who says he would rather go to a baseball game with Ahmadinejad because "he takes national defense seriously, and he'd never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does."[12][13]

Fars News Agency later apologized for its mistake, but claimed that a majority of Americans would prefer anyone outside of the American political system to President Obama and American statesmen.[14]

Time machine story

In April 2013, the agency carried a story claiming a 27-year-old Iranian scientist had invented a time machine that allowed people to see into the future. A few days later the story was removed, and replaced with a story quoting an Iranian government official that no such device had been registered.[15][16]

Alien/extraterrestrial intelligence agenda reports

In January 2014, Fars posted a series of articles that suggested U.S. security policy was being driven by an "alien/extraterrestrial intelligence agenda"[17][18][19] The report said that proof was found in a Federal Security Service report carried out by Edward Snowden.[17][19] The report said that the United States government had been secretly run by a "shadow government" of space aliens since 1945.[20]

Salman Rushdie fatwa

In February 2016, Fars was one of 40 Iranian news agencies that pledged money toward the bounty against Salman Rushdie in regards to The Satanic Verses controversy.[21] Fars promised $30,000 for the killing of Rushdie.[21]

Sanctions

Iranian state News Agency, Fars, an associate of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, has been blocked by the new sanctions applied by US treasury's Office. These sanctions started on 25 January 2020.[22]

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See also

References
  1. "About Us". Fars News Agency. Archived from the original on 31 August 2013. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
  2. "Iranian Seminarians Denounce Anti-Government Protesters". CNN. 12 December 2009. Retrieved 29 August 2013.
  3. "Iran Investigates Reports It Detained Britons-Media". Reuters. 1 December 2009. Retrieved 29 August 2013.
  4. London, Spencer Ackerman Saeed Kamali Dehghan in; Washington, Sabrina Siddiqui in (13 January 2016). "Iran demands apology after detaining US navy boat crews for 'violating' Gulf waters". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
  5. The website footer states that "Fars News Agency is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License"
  6. "Media Environment Guide: Iran" (PDF). BBC Monitoring. 30 July 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 August 2014. Retrieved 7 September 2014.
  7. "Farsnews". farsnews.ir.
  8. "FarsNewsAgency". farsnews.ir.
  9. "وكالة انباء فارس-ایران – Fars News Agency". farsnews.ir.
  10. "خبرگزاری فارس-افغانستان – Fars News Agency". farsnews.ir.
  11. Paraszczuk, Joanna (25 June 2012). "Morsy Denies Iranian Interview on Peace 'Review'". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 29 August 2013.
  12. Martinez, Michael (29 September 2013). "Iran's News Agency Portrays Satirical Onion Story as Its Own". CNN. Archived from the original on 4 October 2012. Retrieved 29 August 2013.
  13. McGreal, Chris (28 September 2012). "Iranian News Agency Fars Reports Onion Article on Ahmadinejad as Actual News – Satirical Newspaper's Claim That Americans Would Rather Hang Out with Ahmadinejad over Obama Taken Seriously in Tehran". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 August 2013.
  14. Philip Caulfield (1 October 2012). "Iran Fars news agency apologizes for running Onion article saying Americans prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama". Daily News. New York.
  15. Satherley, Dan (18 April 2013). "Iran Denies Having Time Machine". 3 News. Retrieved 29 August 2013.
  16. Vahdat, Ahmed (10 April 2013). "Iranian Scientist Claims to Have Invented 'Time Machine' – An Iranian Businessman Claims to Have Mastered Time with a Machine That Allows Users to Fast Forward up to Eight Years into the Future". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 29 August 2013.
  17. http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/01/15/Iran-s-Fars-News-U-S-is-run-by-secret-alien-regime-.html
  18. "U.S. Policies Driven By Aliens, Says Iran's Fars News Agency". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty.
  19. "Iranian News Agency: Snowden Docs Reveal Alien Conspiracy". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
  20. Fisher, Max (13 January 2014). "Iranian news agency says the U.S. is secretly run by Nazi space aliens. Really". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
  21. "Iranian media outlets add to bounty for killing Britain's Rushdie". Reuters. 22 February 2016. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
  22. Iranian News Agency Targeted By US Sanction Resorts To Hacking To Get Domain Back
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