War is not relief

Like many Iranians around the globe, I too have been affected by what is going on in Iran in the last few months. We had protests happening in Iran in late December and early January which resulted in thousands of protesters being massacred in the streets on the 8th and 9th of January by the Iranian regime. This was followed by an attack on the country from the US and Israel on the 28th of February. In both cases, the Iranian regime cut all internet and phone communication with the outside world making it nearly impossible for expats to get any news from their families in the country. All this has naturally put most Iranians abroad under huge pressure, which by itself would make any normal person emotionally vulnerable and so could result in mixing dates and facts. So please read the remainder of this article with that in mind.

The recent Universitetsavisa article “War in Iran: - We are relieved” raises serious concerns about journalistic standards, particularly regarding balance, fact-checking, and the distinction between reporting and advocacy.

The article centers on two of more than 200 Iranian citizens at NTNU who describe feelings of relief and celebration following foreign military strikes against Iran. According to the article, the interviewees heared about the attacks during a demonstration in Trondheim and describe their reactions as hopeful and even celebratory. In reality, opinions among Iranians about foreign military intervention are deeply divided. Some people may indeed feel relief at the weakening of a regime they oppose. Others, however, fear the devastating human costs of war and the instability such conflicts have produced elsewhere in the region. Both perspectives exist within the Iranian diaspora, including among students and researchers abroad. The problem is not that these voices were included. The problem is that they were presented in isolation and without sufficient verification or contextual scrutiny.

Journalism does not require that every possible opinion be represented in a single article. However, when reporting on an issue as consequential as war, Universitetsavisa quotes only individuals who welcome military intervention and frame it as a potentially liberating development without any alternative perspectives provided in the article. It’s quite hard to think that:

• There is no Iranian in the NTNU community expressing concern about what a war can do to the country.
• There is no non-Iranian expert (of which we have quite a few at NTNU) discussing the legality of such strikes or addressing the historical consequences of wars framed as “liberation”.
• Most importantly, there is no acknowledgement that the Iranian diaspora itself is deeply divided on these questions.

Instead, readers are presented with a narrative in which war appears primarily as a moment of relief. The article briefly acknowledges that civilians may die, but this acknowledgement remains superficial. When it comes to the specific case of more than 160 school children who were killed, it tries to find an excuse for it by writing “the school was located right next to one of the IRGC’s military bases”. While not ideal, keeping in mind that more than 150 schools in the US are located on a military base, this shouldn’t be something controversial. By omitting this context, the article reduces a complex political reality to a single emotionally compelling narrative. Furthermore, being a platform closely linked to NTNU, it might have been good to point out that Hamid Amini, a Norwegian-Iranian who in fact did his PhD at NTNU, was killed during the first few hours of the war in Iran while visiting his family during his parental leave. Such a presentation may not be intentional but it has the effect of creating a one-sided narrative about an extremely complex political event. When a story about war includes only voices celebrating military action, readers are left with the impression that such reactions are broadly representative. In reality, opinions within the Iranian diaspora and I assume among the Iranian community at NTNU vary widely. Balanced reporting does not require giving equal space to every possible opinion, but when covering war, the absence of any critical or cautionary voices is striking.

Beyond questions of balance, the article also raises concerns regarding basic fact-checking. According to the article, the interviewees learned about the attacks during a demonstration in Trondheim. However, while the strikes occurred early in the morning of February 28th (around 08:30 Trondheim time), publicly available information indicates that the demonstration was scheduled in advance for 13:00–15:00 at Trondheim Torg. This suggests that the attack had already happened before the gathering started later in the day. This discrepancy raises a simple but important question: was the timeline verified before publication? If not, why? And what other claims lack fact-checking? Verifying basic facts such as when events occurred and how people learned about them is among the most fundamental responsibilities of journalism. When such details remain unclear, the credibility of the entire narrative may be weakened.

It’s important to point out that this is in no way questioning the sincerity of the individuals interviewed in the article. On the contrary, their statements likely reflect genuine emotions during a time of intense uncertainty and concern for their country. Many Iranians abroad are experiencing a difficult and emotionally charged moment, and reactions may differ widely depending on personal experiences and political views. While there is quite a large number of people in the diaspora supporting the attacks, many others do not. This group of people have pointed out the cost such a war would have on the general public. Naturally, with the news coming out from Iran, this has strengthened their position. A regime change war is always a matter of calculating the costs and benefits, and I for one don’t see the benefits as higher than the costs. Think about all the innocent people who have and would lose their lives, all the generations of people who would be affected by it with years of PTSD. Last night a video went viral in the Iranian community of a mother who was trying to comfort her son during one of the many rounds of bombing which, if you have the stomach, I recommend you watch to see the impact of war on the innocent people stuck in the middle.

The article goes on to point to Reza Pahlavi as someone whom many people support as a replacement to the current regime without pointing out how he is a polarizing figure in the Iranian community. Does he have his supporters, sure, so did the dead supreme leader. Nevertheless, many Iranians don’t see him as a viable option. There are many reasons one could point to, but I will stick with how he has managed the situation after the war started, which has resulted in a drop in his supporters during the last week. While he has yet to issue any statement on the murder of school children in the first day of the war by the American army, he has been quick in sending condolence messages after the death of American service members. Just last night, while four different oil depots had been blown up in Tehran, turning day into night and as a CNN reporter in Tehran called raining oil, when Trump had just pointed out that Iran could end up having new borders, he went on Fox News to thank Trump for the much-needed intervention and how this is financially beneficial for the US economy.

All this to point out that journalism, especially one which is linked to an academic institute, should be a platform where complex issues are explored from multiple perspectives and where debate is encouraged rather than simplified into a single storyline. This responsibility is especially important when reporting on conflicts involving countries where reliable information is already difficult to obtain. In such cases, careful verification and contextualization are not merely desirable but essential.