From New Orleans to Tehran: Life of detained Iran newscaster Marzieh Hashemi

As a newscaster for Press TV, Marzieh Hashemi has been conducting interviews and reading the news as written by government loyalists in Iran. (AP)
Updated 17 January 2019
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From New Orleans to Tehran: Life of detained Iran newscaster Marzieh Hashemi

  • Hashemi studied journalism at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge
  • Hashemi ended up in Iran working at Iran’s state broadcaster

WASHINGTON: She is largely unknown in the US. But the American anchorwoman for Iran’s state-run broadcaster, detained last weekend by US authorities, is a familiar face on its English-language channel.
As a newscaster for Press TV, Marzieh Hashemi has been conducting interviews and reading the news as written by government loyalists in Iran. It’s a long way from New Orleans, where she was born Melanie Franklin in 1959 to a Christian family.
In college in Louisiana, encounters with Iranian students in the wake of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution saw her convert to Islam. A marriage brought her to Iran, where she learned fluent Farsi and began working for the country’s state broadcaster 25 years ago.
Her journalism and her public comments mirror her host country’s official ideology.
“When I got familiar with Islamic Revolution in Iran, and I saw it was a political and religious revolution, I was attracted to this,” Hashemi once told an interviewer in Farsi. “I saw this as a political movement to the revolution.”
Now, after her apparent arrest by the FBI, her family is questioning why the 59-year-old grandmother was imprisoned by the US Her detention comes at a time of escalating US-Iran tensions, including President Donald Trump’s maximalist approach to Iran after pulling America out of its nuclear deal.
Hashemi was detained Sunday in St. Louis, where she had filmed a Black Lives Matter documentary after visiting relatives in the New Orleans area. She was then taken to Washington by the FBI on a material witness warrant, according to her elder son, Hossein Hashemi.
The FBI said in an email that it had no comment.
Federal law allows judges to order witnesses to be arrested and detained if the government can prove their testimony has extraordinary value for a criminal case and that they would be a flight risk and unlikely to respond to a subpoena. The statute generally requires those witnesses to be promptly released once they are deposed.
Hashemi studied journalism at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. A yearbook photo shows her smiling with other colleagues at WPRG, now KLSU, the student-run radio station.
“When we were in school together, that was during the Iran hostage crisis. LSU had a sizeable number of Iranian students who were going to school there,” said radio newsman Jim Engster of Baton Rouge, who was also in the photograph.
“The time we were in school was less than 25 years from LSU being an all-white school. So Melanie was a trailblazer too as a black female journalist. There were a few others but not many.”
Hashemi said that’s where she learned about Iran’s revolution, which saw Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi replaced by an Islamic Republic led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shiite cleric who had final say on state matters as the country’s supreme leader.
“I started to ask them about the revolution, because there were many demonstrations by pro-Khomeini demonstrators and also against the revolution in that university,” she later recounted. “I wanted to know that what they are doing and find out who is the Ayatollah Khomeini, and it was very interesting for me as an activist.”
Hashemi ended up in Iran working at Iran’s state broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, or IRIB.
There are no private television or radio stations in Iran. Satellite dishes, while widespread, also are illegal. That leaves IRIB with a monopoly on domestic airwaves.
Since the revolution, IRIB has been in the hands of hard-liners who back Iran’s government. Their broadcasts mirror those of other state-run channels across the Mideast, with direct criticism of leaders incredibly rare.
Press TV, launched in June 2007, is IRIB’s English-language service. While airing in Iran, it focuses predominantly on international affairs through the lens of how leaders in the Islamic Republic see the world. The hashtag “FreePalestine” accompanies stories on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Fierce criticism of British and American foreign policy is common.
Its broadcasts have drawn Western criticism.
In 2012, the Anti-Defamation League described the channel as “one of the world’s leading dispensers of conspiratorial anti-Semitism in English.”
The channel was pulled from the air in Britain in 2011 after a complaint by Maziar Bahari, a Canadian-Iranian journalist for Newsweek who was imprisoned by Iran after the 2009 disputed re-election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became the Green Movement protests. Bahari said the channel aired an interview that had been scripted by his captors, who threatened to execute him unless he cooperated.
For her part, Hashemi both helmed newscasts critical of the West and offered her own criticisms as well.
In 2009, she said she believed Western media exaggerated popular support in Iran for Mir Hossein Mousavi, a reformist who was later put under house arrest, where he has languished for years after challenging Ahmadinejad in 2009 and leading the Green Movement protests.
“What is shown many times in the West, for example, when people saw that there was a very large demonstration supporting Mr. Mousavi, people got the feeling that the country was falling apart and that the majority of Iranians actually supported Mr. Mousavi,” Hashemi told NPR. “No, the majority of them did not, and the other side of the spectrum has not been shown as much, I believe.”
It remains unclear why Hashemi was arrested. However, it isn’t the first time she’s been questioned by US authorities, her son said.
For the past decade, “she has been harassed on a regular basis when she goes to airports,” he said. “Whenever she boards a plane, prior to it she will have interviews or interrogation, if we might call it that— things that are not very typical is what she’s had to deal with for some time.”


Elon Musk’s AI firm deletes Grok chatbot pro-Hitler posts

Updated 09 July 2025
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Elon Musk’s AI firm deletes Grok chatbot pro-Hitler posts

  • Move comes ahead of the launch of Grok 4
  • Turkiye court bans Grok for offensive content

LONDON: Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, was forced to delete posts by its chatbot Grok that praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, following widespread accusations of antisemitism and extremism.

The Anti-Defamation League, a non-profit organization formed to combat attacks on Jews, flagged Grok’s responses, which included offensive tropes, references to antisemitic conspiracies, and positive characterizations of Hitler.

In one widely circulated screenshot online, Grok said Hitler would be best suited to combat “anti-white hate,” referring to him as “history’s mustache man.”

In another response, the chatbot declared: “If calling out radicals cheering dead kids makes me ‘literally Hitler,’ then pass the mustache.”

The chatbot also appeared to endorse a fake account with a Jewish surname that had posted inflammatory comments about young flood victims in Texas.

Grok later referred to the account as a “troll hoax,” but not before generating pro-Hitler content, including: “Hitler would have called it out and crushed it.”

In response to mounting controversy, the firm said it was aware of the recent posts and had taken immediate action to remove inappropriate content.

 

 

“Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X,” it said in a statement on X.

The company added that its model is “truth-seeking” and relies on millions of users on X to quickly flag issues that inform further model training and improvements.

The incident comes ahead of the release of Grok 4 on Wednesday. Musk announced on Friday that Grok had been “significantly” improved, though the nature of the updates was not disclosed.

 

 

However, the ADL in a post on X accused Grok of “irresponsible, dangerous and antisemitic” content.

“Companies that are building LLMs (Large Language Models) like Grok and others should be employing experts on extremist rhetoric and coded language to put in guardrails that prevent their products from engaging in producing content rooted in antisemitic and extremist hate.”

The episode has drawn renewed scrutiny of AI chatbot safety and highlighted growing concerns over the risks of unregulated AI tools producing harmful, politically incorrect and unfiltered responses.

On Wednesday, a court in Turkiye ordered a ban on access to Grok from the country, after the platform disseminated content insulting to the nation’s president and others.

The chatbot posted vulgarities against Turkiye President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his late mother and personalities, while responding to users’ questions on the X social media platform, according to the pro-government A Haber news channel.

Offensive responses were also directed toward modern Turkiye’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, other media outlets said.

That prompted the Ankara public prosecutor to file for the imposition of restrictions under Turkiye’s internet law, citing a threat to public order.

A criminal court approved the request early on Wednesday, ordering the country’s telecommunications authority to enforce the ban.

It’s not the first time Grok’s behavior has raised questions.
Earlier this year the chatbot kept talking about South African racial politics and the subject of “white genocide” despite being asked a variety of questions, most of which had nothing to do with the country. An “unauthorized modification” was behind the problem, xAI said.

The firm xAI was formed in 2023 and merged with X earlier this year as a part of Musk’s broader vision to build an AI-driven digital ecosystem.

With Agencies


Semafor appoints Saudi Arabia bureau chief as part of regional expansion

Updated 09 July 2025
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Semafor appoints Saudi Arabia bureau chief as part of regional expansion

  • Matthew Martin to also serve as global head of sovereign wealth fund coverage

DUBAI: Semafor has appointed Matthew Martin as its Saudi Arabia bureau chief and global head of sovereign wealth fund coverage as the news platform expands its Gulf edition.

He will head the growing team in Riyadh and be a part of the wider editorial staff led by Semafor Gulf editor Mohammed Sergie.

Martin, who has over two decades of journalistic experience, was most recently Bloomberg’s chief correspondent for SWFs in the Middle East and North Africa region.

His focus was the role of SWFs in promoting local economies, diversification, investing for a post-oil future, and projecting soft power internationally.

Prior to this, he served as Bloomberg’s Saudi Arabia bureau chief and was responsible for the network’s coverage of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen.

He has been with Bloomberg since 2013, and moved from Dubai to Riyadh in January 2021, where his reporting focused on Saudi Arabia, particularly Aramco and the Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund.

“Matt is the definitive reporter on one of the world’s biggest stories, Saudi Arabia’s transformation of itself and much of the world around it,” said Ben Smith, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Semafor.

Martin’s appointment “marks a major step forward in Semafor’s ambition to become the leading global media presence in the Gulf,” said Justin Smith, co-founder and CEO of Semafor (no relation to Ben).

He added: “We are not just covering the region but also how the ascendant Gulf story relates to the key corridors of US power and influence — Washington D.C., Wall Street and Silicon Valley — as well as the emerging ties between the Gulf and the African continent through collaborations with our Semafor Africa edition.”

As Semafor continues to expand, its reporting will soon “closely track Gulf-Asia and Gulf-EU corridors of influence as well,” Justin Smith said.

Semafor Gulf launched in September 2024, marking the firm’s third edition, joining its US and sub-Saharan Africa newsletters.

Since then, the platform’s reporting has included the UAE’s plan to invest $1.4 trillion in the US, the state of foreign consulting in Saudi Arabia, OPEC+ strategy, and Gulf-Israel relations.


Egyptian TV presenter apologizes after claiming international artworks as her own

Updated 08 July 2025
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Egyptian TV presenter apologizes after claiming international artworks as her own

  • The backlash also prompted TV host El-Shazly to apologize for the incident

DUBAI: Egyptian TV presenter and designer Maha Al-Sagheer has issued an apology after falsely claiming ownership of artworks by four European artists during a recent talk show appearance, sparking backlash from the original painters and social media users.

Al-Sagheer appeared last month as a guest on a talk show on ON channel with prominent TV host Mona El-Shazly where she spoke of her passion for fine arts and showcased several paintings on a large screen, claiming they were her own.

However, Danish artist Lisa Lach-Nielsen took to Instagram on Sunday to accuse the TV presenter of stealing her artwork, titled “Made Myself Some Wings,” which she created in 2019, along with pieces by three other artists.

“Copying other people’s work is one thing, but taking a photo of the actual painting, that someone else made, and taking public ownership of it … that’s new to me,” said Lach-Nielsen wrote in the post, where she also tagged two other artists whose works she identified.

She noted that the act is “not only a violation of the law but also the person who put their soul and time into the work.

 

 

“Living as an artist is not always easy, and we need the internet to show our work … no one should take advantage of that,” said Lach-Nielsen.

In response to the online criticism sparked by Lach-Nielsen’s post, Al-Sagheer posted an apology on her Facebook account on Monday, admitting her “big mistake towards the danish artist Lisa, towards artists and more important towards myself.

“I have been passing through hardship during this period of my life. It has been a very tough time. However, it doesn’t give me the right to do what I have done. I’m deeply sorry and very upset due to what I have done.”

Earlier in the day, Finnish artist Caroline Wendelin also spoke out online, raising concerns over the unauthorized use of her painting “Becoming the Garden.”

Wendelin said: “I’m not rich. I’m not famous. I work until I’m exhausted, all while raising 3 small children and pouring my whole heart into my art. Hoping that one day it might give us a chance to buy our first home.

“So imagine what it feels like to see a wealthy influencer steal my art, claim it as her own, and present it on national TV as if it came from her hands.”

She added that her painting “symbolises how with time and patience, we become what we nurture. Seeing someone erase that meaning is deeply painful.”

 

 

On the same day, Dubai-based French artist Seaty took to Instagram to identify three of his artworks titled “Dwarka”, “Kigali” and “Bushido,” which he created in 2017, among the pieces displayed on the show.

“Worse still, in the broadcast segment, my former studio is clearly visible, along with the canvases bearing my signature, and even the original photo available on my Instagram page.”

He added: “After all these years of effort, failure, research, and creative energy … to have my art stolen like this, in broad daylight, so shamelessly and without remorse it’s simply unacceptable. Especially in 2025, in an age when everything can be verified in a matter of clicks.”

 

 

The backlash also prompted TV host El-Shazly to apologize for the incident, sharing an image of the Danish artist Lach-Nielsen’s painting and acknowledging that it is her work.

“We respect true artists and value their original creations in all fields.”


Music trade bodies concerned about BBC’s changes to airing live performances

Updated 08 July 2025
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Music trade bodies concerned about BBC’s changes to airing live performances

  • Move could ‘curtail artistic freedom,’ head of Featured Artists Coalition says
  • Move could ‘curtail artistic freedom,’ head of Featured Artists Coalition says

DUBAI: Music trade bodies have accused the BBC of making “arbitrary and disproportionate” changes to its broadcasting and streaming of live music events following the controversy around Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury performance.

During the punk rap duo’s set at the festival on June 28, they led the crowd in pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli military chants like “free, free Palestine” and “death, death to the IDF.”

The BBC livestreamed the performance in full leading to a backlash from the government.

BBC Director-General Tim Davie ordered the content to not be featured in any other coverage. However, due to a technical issue the stream was available on the BBC iPlayer for about five hours.

Davie and BBC chair Samir Shah have both apologized. The BBC said in a statement: “Warnings appeared on the stream on two occasions and the editorial team took the decision not to cut the feed. This was an error.”

Music industry trade bodies and experts now say the BBC is overreacting.

“The BBC is absolutely fundamental to the continued success of British music and particularly vital to supporting our new and emerging artists’ development,” said David Martin, head of the Featured Artists Coalition, a UK trade body that supports music artists.

The FAC supported the network’s public service broadcasting remit, which understandably came with responsibilities and standards, he said.

“If those standards have been breached, then there should be appropriate guidelines to follow. But the idea of preemptively grading artists according to their risk factor feels arbitrary and disproportionate and a dangerous step toward censorship.”

Such an approach could “curtail artistic freedom” and “inadvertently punish those who are simply expressing their views,” he said.

Naomi Pohl, general secretary of The Musicians’ Union, stressed the importance of the BBC and its role in the music industry.

“It’s such a shame there has been this shadow cast over this year’s Glastonbury coverage, because it has had fantastic viewing figures. It’s been all over iPlayer and people have been tuning in live,” she said.

“We need to talk to the BBC about it directly. But I don’t want to see any broadcasters now broadcasting fewer live events because they don’t want to take the risk. The whole of the music industry will be feeling that, because it’s so crucial to us to have the BBC.”

A BBC spokesperson said the broadcaster stood by its decision to make changes to livestreaming music performances.

“We will continue to bring audiences a range of music performances, both live and on-demand and we respect artists’ freedom of expression,” the person said.

“However, Bob Vylan’s offensive and deplorable behavior on one of our Glastonbury livestreams was completely unacceptable and we are sorry it appeared on the BBC.

“This is why we have made immediate changes to livestreaming music events and these, alongside our editorial guidelines, will shape our plans going forward.”


The Destination: Saudi reforms through the lens of a documentary

New Konoz documentary highlight's Kingdoms advancements towards achieving 2030 goals. (SPA)
Updated 08 July 2025
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The Destination: Saudi reforms through the lens of a documentary

  • Arabic film produced by Konoz, an initiative by the kingdom’s media ministry

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s transformation toward its Vision 2030 goals has been documented in a new film by the Ministry of Media.

Launched by the ministry’s Konoz initiative, “The Destination” highlights the progress made in the political, economic, medical, sporting, cultural, media and artistic fields.

Mirroring the film's title, Saudi Arabia has become a global destination for investment, tourism, and much more. (Supplied)

Its title reflects the Kingdom’s path toward becoming a global destination for tourism and investment.

Konoz CEO Abdullah Al-Ahmari credited megaprojects and upcoming events such as the AFC Asian Cup 2027, Expo Riyadh 2030 and FIFA World Cup 2034.

HIGHLIGHT

‘The Destination’ includes interviews with key figures from various fields as well as testimonies, quotes and historical records. It is part of a series of films produced by Konoz in cooperation with almost 90 organizations and more than 2,600 individuals.

“The Konoz initiative aims to document the Kingdom’s achievements through creative productions,” he said, describing the country as a “model admired by the world.”

The film reflected the progress being made on the ground and highlighted the initiative’s focus on Saudi talent in shaping the Kingdom’s future, he said.

“The Destination” includes interviews with key figures from various fields as well as testimonies, quotes and historical records. It is part of a series of films produced by Konoz in cooperation with almost 90 organizations and more than 2,600 individuals.

The Konoz initiative is part of the Human Capacity Development Program under Vision 2030. Its goal is to promote Saudi Arabian culture around the world by highlighting the contributions and success stories of its citizens.