Journalistic Election

 

Press Supervisory Board is the board which supervises the performance of the press and issues the license of publications. By the combination of the government and the Ministry of

Islamic Culture and Guidance the press are highly under control. It was possible that the representative of the managing directors could enter such area where an intact atmosphere is ruling. Many reformist friends tried to push one with different ideas to join this group. We agreed on Mr Kavakabian who is the managing director of Mardomsalary “Democracy” newspaper and some reformists who were nominees resigned in his favor. Since I am the managing director of “Religious News”, I was contacted as well. Some famous figures like Hadi Khamenei and Reza Khatami had also taken part. Still, in a glance it would become clear that many reformist managing directors had not taken part. The voting result also showed that many had not come mostly because of laziness. On the other hand, in a glance one could see the active participation of conservatives. Of course, I also came across some friends who used to be reformist but now with the new government when it is difficult and expensive to preserve a publication, they were chanting Mr Entezami’s name loudly. Hossein Entezami was the candidate of conservatives and some of the conservatives had resigned in his favour. I wish one would publish the names of reformist managing directors who had not taken part in the election. After voting I met Mr Entezami while leaving. We exchanged greetings. He said that: you had to vote for me since we are from the same city. I said jokingly that I have not come all this way to vote for you! If I were the candidate, you would not vote for me either. Hossein Entezami was formerly the editor of Jamejam daily and later he was appointed as the Supreme National Security Council spokesman. He is now the head of Hamshahri newspaper and he has a good position in the Deputy of Press Affairs in the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. While we were making jokes and were talking sarcastically, Mr Rahmanian the managing director of the closed-down newspaper, Shargh, who was standing nearby said that the supervisory board instructs closing down of newspapers by a large majority.  He was referring to the order of the very same board that had closed down the high circulated newspaper of Shargh on the threshold of election. Although Entezami is good-tempered and sociable, he answered Rahmanian back harshly. Any how, it was a healthy election and as the result Mr Entezami with 89 votes against Mr Kavakabian with 73 votes was chosen as the representative of managing directors in the Press Supervisory Board. I wonder if we can expect Mr Entezami who is now the representative of other managing directors not to think of the colleagues of the same opinion just and care for others’ problems as well. I hope this would be done by him. A minor point also attracted my attention: the new head of Iran News Agency (IRNA) and head of Iran newspaper as well as the newly selected representative of managing directors are all from Mashad (the city I was born!)