CNN defended correspondent Frederik Pleitgen on Friday after a top State Department official accused him of spreading “pro-Iran regime propaganda.”
The network said that Pleitgenthe first reporter from a U.S.-based outlet to enter Iran“is providing valuable insight for CNN’s audiencesadding to our wider reporting that features multiple perspectives from civiliansopposition voicesas well as officialsalongside raw photos and video capturing what Iran is like today.”
“Each report also provides full transparent disclosure that the team is reporting from inside Iran with government permission,” CNN added.
On ThursdayDylan Johnsonthe State Department’s Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairsderided Pleitgen’s report showing how Iranians were still able to purchase coffee and groceries despite the U.S. and Israeli strikes on the nation.
“Someone gave this guy a coffee…” Johnson wrote.
A State Department spokesperson did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
An NPR reporter questioned the agency over how Pleitgen’s report amounted to “propaganda,” and the agency told her it encouraged news outlets “to verify information with official U.S. government sources before publication.
Reporters traditionally reach out to government agencies for comment on storiesbut are not expected to hold reporting until verified by the government. In this casePleitgen reported what he witnessed firsthand.
“The role of journalism is to bear witness to events as they occurto report out to audiences factually what a reporter is seeingwithout agenda and with context,” CNN additionally said Friday in the statement. “Being able to do this from on the ground inside Iran during this conflict is of particular importance.”
Operating with spotty internet servicePleitgen has used his dispatches to document life within the country as he travels to its capitalTehransuch as showcasing open gas stations and grocery stores and explaining what he had to eat. “Breakfast was eggs and bread. No lunch as it is Ramadan. Dinner was kebab,” he wrote on X on Friday.
“You just don’t see any sort of degree of panic anywhere,” Pleitgen said in a Thursday report for the network.
StillPleitgen has also used his X feed to show explosions hitting Tehran before dawnin one Friday video noting the “thick black smoke billowing from one location” in southern Tehran.
For a story documenting the challenges of covering the war in IranPleitgen told TheWrap in an email that “personal safety is obviously a challenge with the ongoing air campaignparticularly when very heavy munitions are being used in dense urban areas” and they “try to keep clear of military and police installations when in country.”
Pleitgan said that hephotojournalist Claudia Otto and his producer “are always on high alert for airstrikeswhich happen frequently and without warningmaking them especially hard to predict,” adding: “We try to keep track of where airstrikes have been hitting and then be sure to avoid those areas.”
Pleitgen responded to Johnson on X: “I bought the coffee.”
