This is Reuters. Just like Fox News, and even the BBC, it has not a long history of distorting news about Iran to tarnish the country’s image. It is no easy task to bring down this news agency for spreading false news. But how long should the bias and distorted news go on?

In February 2003, Office of Strategic Influence was established, with a major responsibility to “distribute propaganda” to foreign media to promote America's image in the world. It is evident that a government agency has to cover up for the lies and through this bureau the spread of false news could continue.

Herbert Marcuse was the first to claim that in the history of the emergence of fascism, comedy precedes tragedy. The initial terror will appear as a comic opera.
On August 1, 2017, the Reuters news agency released an exclusive, very controversial and hot report, saying that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has found a new way to join the Yemeni rebels. The news laid out a map of the geographic location of Iran and Yemen, claiming that the Iran was dispatching arms to the Yemeni rebels. However, there was no way for Iran to reach Yemen, an Arabian country that was fully besieged.

But the story got even more interesting. The author of this report was Londoner Jonathan Saul, whose articles in Reuters were mainly in the field of global transportation and banking. The source of information was three senior Iranian officials who apparently had contacted Saul, telling him that Iran had found a new way to bring weapons to the Yemeni people. But why did they do that? Had they gone mad? Is this Reuters?

This was Reuters then. Today, the release of the satirical comedies about Iran continues, a familiar scenario to the Iranian people. It is a reminder of the news channel, Amad News Agency which repeatedly downgrades Iran's governing system. Reuters has, too, focused on Iran for some reason.
A few days ago, Reuters also wrote that some officials in the Islamic Republic have allegedly bought African passports as sanctions bit and are ready to transfer $30 billion out of the country.

In his latest press conference, the U.S. State Department spokesman also said that Reuters reported that some of the companies in the Iranian market have already left Iran over the last few weeks, and some never entered the Iranian market for the past two years.
 
Finally, Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also said that Reuters has spread 50 lies on Iran's economic status.

Why does Reuters muddy its reputation?

Reuters does not gamble. Iranians living in Iran know quite well that the reports and news are lies, but the foreign audience can buy such reports.  But why?

The Western audience is accustomed to accepting other beliefs that ultimately come to them through the amazing power of the mass media. The Reuters blows Iran’s economic problems out of proportion, a scenario that is not even played by the notorious media like Fox News or their BBC, although the international news agency claims that is moving towards another “media paradigm”. A paradigm that is not gained through credibility, but is more based on building short-term and rapid impacts on foreign audience about Iran; encouraging them to believe that Iran is a turbulent society, and so on. Slowly and gradually, the Iranian audience is forced to accept such news. This is Reuters's policy.

The political tendencies of governments these days are merciless and brutal, but history proves to be more brutal. If Reuters continues to publish false news, then the news agency is nothing but a mouthpiece for the notorious Western mainstream media.

On an American site, where people get their questions answered, a user named eli5 three years ago asked how is the Reuters news agency different from news networks such as Fox News and MSNBC, and why Reuters carries reputable sources.

Users almost provided identical answers: Reuters was a professional news agency and is not affiliated to any power. Reuters is a source of the news of various news networks and media and is therefore bound to maintain neutrality; Reuters covers only facts, does not interpret news, and is not objective. Reuters also does not use emotional words; it only provides numbers and facts, as it is not inclined to any political group or country.

Former CNN correspondent Amber Lyon was the last to answer this question. She said, “CNN does nothing but to provide a series of media propaganda for Western dictators.”

The story of Reuters’ credibility and its project on Iran these days can quickly take the mind of a well-informed person to the similar stories by Reuters.
One story was February 11, 2011.  The news of President Hosni Mubarak's withdrawal from the Egyptian government was quickly spread through words of mouth and Cairo's al-Tahrir Square was ready for Egyptian people to celebrate the victory of their revolution. National flags flooded the streets. Among the images television cameras reported to the world in the quadrangles of the Tahrir Square was excitement over “Freedom”. A special video in the corner of the same Square showed clips of some people having raised the flag of Qatar. The meaning of this symbolic gesture was so quite clear. Egyptians thanking the Al Jazeera network for its media support and coverage for the Egyptian revolution. Al Jazeera got big, bigger than the actual coverage of Mubarak’s withdrawal.

A year into the crisis in Syria, angry Syrians took to streets in support of their legitimate President Bashar al-Assad. In addition to burning the flag of the U.S. and Israel, the perpetrators of the crisis, Syrians burnt flags of Qatar too. Protesters wanted Al-Jazeera to halt the propaganda on Syria, and they had many good reasons for that, including the video that the Syrian government had discovered behind the scenes of the activities of the Algerian correspondent in Syria, showing how the Algerian correspondent was getting ready to fabricate the news, showing the invasion of Bashar's army in his background, while he was busy reading the report.
And that put an early end to the dream that Al Jazeera had in mind, leading public opinion in the Arab world. If Reuters continues the spread of propaganda, it will, too, be at the end of its dream of shaping the world’s public opinion.

In the report by Reuters on the purchase of African passport by Iranian authorities, a name was familiar, Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, an Iranian journalist, who had already been busy working with BBC Persian Television. What’s sad is that in an era, when the independent American media are defending Iran with the slogan "Not to war with Iran", Iranian journalists are doing otherwise. Sharafedin had produced two documentaries on Iran in an attempt to portray lies on Iran, published by Reuters.