Alleged manipulation of Polling further highlighted Iranian state television IRIB’s credibility gap.
An Iranian student during a meeting with IRIB Chief Payman JJebelli on the Students Day 97 December) accused the IRIB of fabricating polls to feign popularity.
He was referring to a case in October 2024, when a survey by the government-owned ISPA agency put state television’s popularity at just 12.5%.
Around the same time, Mohsen Shakeri Nejad, head of IRIB’s own polling unit, claimed popularity was closer to 72%.
He added that “the figure could have been higher if, like elsewhere in the world, Generation Z had not turned away from national television.”
In his defence, Jebelli argued that IRIB’s reputation was most severely damaged after the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom movement, when he claimed the broadcaster was denied key information about ongoing events, including the cause of Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody that initiated several months of protests in Iran.
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