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The Iran school strike: mainstream media investigates, MAGA media ignores
Dogged investigative news reporting reveals the U.S. role in the deadly school bombing but you won't hear much about that from Trump-friendly media
One of America’s most precision weapons- a tomahawk missile hit an elementary school in Iran, killing nearly 200 children. It appears to be the worst tragedy so far in the US/ Israel-launched war. The United Nations calls it a violation of international humanitarian law and Human Rights Watch says it requires a war crimes investigation.
It was dogged reporting by U.S. and international journalists using open-source intelligence, “geolocated videos, public statements from US officials and the assessment of munitions experts” that uncovered the growing evidence that it was the US military that launched not one, but two Tomahawk missiles at the school. Now 12-days after the strike, the New York Times is reporting that a preliminary government inquiry does place the blame squarely on the U.S.
The images are truly devastating. Bystander videos show parents clawing through the rubble searching for survivors. There is aerial footage of row after row of tiny graves. Iranian State TV had live coverage of the funerals with enormous crowds of mourners. The tragedy is an important part of the story of this war, but because it has become a political liability for Donald Trump, MAGA media has mostly ignored it.
There’s barely a mention of it on the war-with-Iran cheerleader, Fox. The same is true for the Trump-friendly Sinclair and Nexstar owned local television stations. CBS News is also lagging far behind on the school strike story while doing it’s fair share of Iran war cheerleading.
The school bombing occurred just hours into the start of the war on Saturday, Feb 28th. (Saturday is a school day in Iran.) It happened hundreds of miles away from the Iranian capital of Tehran in Minab, a town near the Strait of Hormuz. Despite its relatively remote location and Iran’s on and off again internet access, video of the bombing aftermath quickly ricocheted around the world. Soon after, the finger pointing began. Did Israel bomb the school or was it the US? Or like many-including Trump- claimed it was an Iran misfire that killed all of those kids? Credible media outlets quickly tried to answer those critical questions.
Mainstream media investigates
Using “satellite imagery and visuals of the aftermath of the Minab attack,” the Reuters News agency was first to report the likely U.S. role in the bombing. More news coverage soon followed, with journalists using rigorous investigative techniques similar to those used to uncover details of the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by ICE in Minneapolis in January.
These are some of the headlines from the first round of investigative pieces on Minab. Nothing like this was evident on MAGA media.
WSJ: U.S. Likely Hit Girls’ School Attached to Iranian Military Compound
ABC News: US was operating in area of elementary school ahead of deadly strike: Sources
NYT: Analysis Suggests School Was Hit Amid U.S. Strikes on Iranian Naval Base
NBC News: The U.S. military was targeting an area near bombed Iranian school, sources say
The impressive reporting on the nightmare has continued this week with Bellingcat geolocating video of a Tomahawk missile hitting near the school and the NYT’s story about how the bomb fragments have US markings. Also important this week: when NYT reporter Sean McCreesh directly confronted Trump at a news conference on Monday on US culpability. It was quite an exchange, certainly not something we are used to seeing from the White House press corps.
McCreesh: “You just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a Tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war, but you’re the only person in your government saying this. Why are you the only person saying this?”
Trump: “Because I just don’t know enough about it. I think it’s something that I was told is under investigation, but Tomahawks are used by others, as you know. Numerous other nations have Tomahawks. They buy them from us.”
MAGA media ignores school strike
Contrast that to the limited coverage of this massive Iran tragedy on Fox. Of course, there’s been no mention of the bombing of Ukrainian civilians on Russian state TV either. Prime time host Laura Ingraham did call for full transparency on the bombing and there was one brief moment of truth telling on Fox. It came on Monday when anchor Bret Baier debriefed one of the only journalist’s at the cable network, Jennifer Griffith. She said Trump surely knows the U.S. bombed the school and was just trying to muddy the waters.
MAGA-coded CBS News falls short
Not surprisingly, CBS News has also downplayed the school strike story. While some of its Iran war coverage has been impressive, the network has so far barely touched the story that is causing headaches for the Trump administration. For nearly a week after the bombing, the only story CBS did about the school attack had only text and photos, no video and no reporter. It was posted to the CBS website with a bland “Here’s what we know” headline that was never updated even as more information about the U.S. role was revealed.
When CBS finally did an investigative piece looking into which country bombed the school, it was a well done, informative reporter segment produced by its “CBS confirmed” team. But the story didn’t appear on the CBS Evening News, the network’s marquee newscast. To date, that news program has barely mentioned the bombing, only showing its viewers a few quick clips. On CBS’ primary social media channel this week -the MAGA friendly twitter- there have been twice as many social posts about a shooting at the rock singer Rhihanna’s house than the Iran school bombing.
All of that is in sharp contrast to the work being done by their broadcast competitors at ABC and NBC. Both of those news networks have done multiple video stories including expert analysis, reaction from Iranian officials, and deeply reported investigative pieces. CNN is also doing exceptional work on the school strike story and the war itself.
Covering the war and specifically this horrific bombing is clearly complicated given that Iran is a notoriously difficult place to do fact based journalism. CNN is one of the few western news outlets with a correspondent actually in Iran. New York Times editor Adrienne Carter said: “It’s complicated. It’s one of the hardest places in the world to report on.”
Carter adds:
“...we are not on the ground in Iran. Communications are limited in the country. So the reporting is always going to be more difficult and slower than in places like Israel and Lebanon, where we have reporters who can see firsthand what is happening.
Every time there’s a major news event, you end up calling hundreds of people in the hopes that you can talk to one. And that’s assuming the internet and phones are working in Iran, where they are often shut down by the government at sensitive times. Visual material is also very important in moments like this. Verified visual material. We work very closely with our Visual Investigations team to see what user-generated content and satellite imagery is out there.
The growing amount of coverage on this tragedy has clearly touched a nerve at the Trump White House. On Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused the New York Times of harassment for “putting out a lot of articles on this…” Digging into a crucial story like this is clearly anything but harassment. But Trump tries to sidestep blame for the killing of those 165 Iranian children and school staffers, Leavitt’s diatribe is a not so subtle signal to MAGA media to keep doing what it’s doing.
But this deadly war of choice demands news coverage that is credible, objective and fearless done by experienced journalists- who are committed to chasing down facts and reporting out what they dig up without fear or favor just like what we are now seeing with the coverage of the Iran school strike.
Jennifer Schulze is a former local TV news exec, reporter & producer with a few opinions about the news. She’s on Bluesky @newsjennifer.bsky.social and Substack at “Indistinct Chatter.”
This war was never the will of the Iranian people. The Iranian people can overthrow the mullahs' regime. The National Council of Resistance of Iran has always said neither war nor appeasement, but the third solution: regime change in Iran by the organized resistance of the Iranian people.