Iran Is Burning — and the World’s Media Is Missing in Action

Why one of the most consequential uprisings in years is unfolding beyond the view of much of the Western press

One of the most consequential political events of this decade may be unfolding in real time in Iran. And if you rely on legacy media for your information, you may know very little about what is actually happening.

Since late December 2025, opposition to Iran’s theocratic regime has escalated into sustained street protests across multiple cities. This is not a single flashpoint or an isolated economic grievance. It is an uprising explicitly directed at the ayatollahs and the Islamic Republic itself. Yet coverage across much of the Western legacy press has been sporadic, delayed, sanitized, or absent altogether.

Yes, Iran is an extraordinarily difficult country to cover. Western journalists are often treated not as observers but as enemies. Reporters are arrested, threatened, and silenced. Families of Iranian journalists working abroad are targeted. Local journalists are warned that independent reporting — or even personal social media commentary — will lead to prosecution. Internet shutdowns are deployed surgically to prevent footage from escaping. Foreign reporters are barred or tightly stage-managed. Verification is genuinely hard in an era of AI-generated content and recycled video.

All of that is true. And none of it is new.

I remember the nonstop coverage of the Arab Spring and the wall-to-wall reporting from Cairo in 2011, when Egyptians filled Tahrir Square and toppled Hosni Mubarak. Tehran today is not Cairo then — but that makes this moment more important, not less. Iran is a nuclear-threshold state. It is a regional power. It is the backbone of multiple proxy wars and a principal financial backer of international terror networks. What happens in its streets matters globally.

In recent days, Iranian media and human rights groups have reported fatalities during the latest unrest, marking the most significant protests inside Iran in roughly three years. Yet these developments have struggled to break through on major international broadcasts.

Even outlets with a physical presence or long-standing Iran desks — including major British broadcasters such as the BBC and Sky — too often default to official statements from Islamic Republic agencies, framing unrest as economic discontent or foreign provocation rather than reflecting what protesters themselves are demanding: the end of clerical rule. The BBC in particular has devoted disproportionate attention to Gaza while giving scant, intermittent attention to unrest in Iran. Other outlets appear consumed by Venezuela, US domestic politics, or the New Year’s tragedy in Switzerland, as though modern audiences are incapable of following more than one major story at a time.

The result is a vacuum. Into that vacuum rush citizen journalists and podcasters who provide a constant stream of raw video from Iran’s streets. Some of this material is invaluable. Some of it is unverifiable. Much of it lacks context. But when legacy media abdicates its role, people will seek information wherever they can find it — and attempt to filter it themselves.

That is a failure of journalism, not of audiences.

The central question in Iran right now is not whether protests are occurring. They are. The question is whether this is a historic inflection point or yet another moment when the regime regroups, represses, and survives. That question demands sustained, serious, skeptical coverage — not occasional headlines buried beneath safer narratives.

It is no mystery why public trust in legacy media continues to erode. On Iran, at a moment that may define a generation, too much of it is failing to meet the moment.