Iran's media: The new red lines

Following the recent arrest of reporters, we examine the deteriorating state of journalism in election year Iran.

Over the past days, at least 14 reporters have been detained in a sweep of reform-minded news outlets in the country. They worked for seven different news outlets but the implication is that most of them also did work for foreign media outlets the government calls 'anti-revolutionary'.

The timing of these arrests is significant: In five months, Iran will hold presidential elections - the first after the 2009 polls that saw huge protests in Tehran, the footage of which was beamed around Iran and across the world.

Hanging over the Iran media story - like a dark cloud of context - is the spectre of those 2009 protests, and these fresh arrests signal a government that is taking pre-emptive action. The warning from the regime could not be clearer: collaborate with the voice of “the enemy” and you are no longer reporting, you are agitating.