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(Image Source: Flickr/FutureAtlas.com)
BY HARUMENDHAH HELMY
ANCHOR ZACH TOOMBS
Earlier this week, the Associated Press ran a story claiming it has obtained a leaked
graph that proves Iran is indeed working on a nuclear bomb.
The story included this low-quality graph — which the AP says reveals how Iran’s
bomb would have triple the force of the American nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.
Sounds scary, right? Except — the graph
doesn’t really say what the AP claims it says.
Scientists writing at the Bulletin of Atomic Science have refuted the graph, saying “[its]
two curves do not correspond … As is, the diagram features a nearly million-fold error.
This diagram does nothing more than indicate either slipshod analysis or an amateurish
hoax.” The scientists also say the level graph’s scientific sophistication corresponds
to those found in students of “graduate- or advanced undergraduate-level nuclear physics
courses.” Not exactly nuclear weapon scientists.
It looks like someone at the AP forgot to check their facts. The article also only mentions
“a country critical of Iran’s atomic program” as its source for the graph.
Numerous publications have picked up the AP’s graph and story since it published on Tuesday
— widely spreading the technically inaccurate report.
Writing for the Guardian, civil liberties advocate Glenn Greenwald lays out the problem
of irresponsible journalism when it comes to Iran.
“...as long as media outlets like AP continue to blindly trumpet whatever is shoveled to
them by the shielded, unnamed ‘country …’ fear levels [will be] kept sky-high, thus enabling
the continuation and escalation of the hideous sanctions regime, if not an outright attack
[against Iran].”