CNN and Sky News have maintained their claims that their journalists in Iran had complete editorial control over where and what they covered. They insisted they weren’t guided or followed by a minder, but they did hire translators. But on Thursday’s Morning Joe, PBS Frontline journalist and producer Sebastian Walker noted that when he was in Iran last year, the “government affiliated translators” he had “essentially act as minders” and made his job more difficult.
Amid an interview about Iran and Walker’s documentary for Frontline regarding the aftermath of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last year, co-host Jonathan Lemire wanted to know:
So what is your sense as best, you know, to the Iranian people? How are they processing all of this? Are they able to get information? Do you think they're even they're aware of what is happening within their own borders?
“So yeah, I mean, during our filming trip, it's, it's very challenging to work as a journalist on the ground in Iran. There are a lot of limitations,” Walker said.
Walker went on to completely contradict the claims CNN and Sky News had been making about how their reporters purportedly didn’t have any minders, calling out his translator as one. He also noted how it made his job harder:
You're constantly, you know, accompanied by government affiliated translators who essentially act as minders. So it's often hard to kind of have a fully authentic conversation with everyday Iranians. But, you know, working with our reporting partners at the Washington post, Bellingcat and evident media, we're also able to look at, you know, the open source social media feeds and, you know, communicate with people on the ground in Iran.
CNN and Sky News have claimed that they had full editorial control while in Iran and didn't have a government minder following them around, but they did hire translators.
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) March 26, 2026
But on today's Morning Joe, PBS's Sebastian Walker explained that when he was in Iran, "There are a lot of… pic.twitter.com/BAsdbaNo0M
As NewsBusters reported last week, in an interview with the Guardian, CNN senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen initially suggested they didn’t have a minder, but they did have “a guy” who showed them around and translated. He began to say the guy “obviously” had some sort of duty before cutting himself off and noting that the regime had asked the guy not to show them certain places:
No, we didn’t. So, we don’t have a minder. We have a translator who’s a guy that we hire and we pay, but he obviously – the culture ministry asks him to not take us to places that are sensitive.
Obviously, what he was describing was a minder.
When asked about if he felt his coverage was “truly independent, considering the limitations,” Pleitgen said he wished he was able to speak with more average Iranian so he could judge how much support the regime actually had:
I felt good about the coverage. I think that as far as the ongoing war was concerned, we definitely did what we’d set out to do and what we wanted to do. One of the things I would like to delve into more, which we didn’t get to do to that extent, was to what extent the government still has the support of the people. Because there were very few people who were still out on the streets, and a lot of people are afraid to speak to you.
As for Sky News, international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn was on MS NOW’s Katy Tur Reports and erroneously claimed he didn’t have a minder in a similar way to how Pleitgen did.
Sky News's Dominic Waghorn, a very close ally of the Iranian regime, claims he didn't have a minder following him around (not true), claims only a small portion of the population is "resentful of the regime" and more are very much supportive of the regime," and claims the strikes… pic.twitter.com/suqrvn5kc4
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) March 23, 2026
“We had a translator. There's no real government minder who goes with you, and you can operate as much as you want in the area where you're given permission to film,” Waghorn insisted. He did admit that “people are reluctant to talk to you.” But Waghorn insisted that the populace largely supported the regime, despite the mass protests just a couple months ago that were brutally put down.
It should be remembered that both CNN and Sky News were recently caught attending a party to celebrate the regime at the Iranian embassy in London, with Waghorn attending in person. Both CNN and Waghorn defend their attendance, which likely made getting permission to operate in Iran a lot easier.
If they're still going to insist there weren't any minders, it means they either know they're lying or they're so oblivious that their judgement should be greatly questioned.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MS NOW’s Morning Joe
March 26, 2026
9:14:06 a.m. Eastern(…)
JONATHAN LEMIRE: Sebastian, we also want to ask you, you've been to the region. We know now that it's been it's been weeks and I think months actually, since the internet was shut down there in Iran. It started during the protests earlier this year, which were massive, but yet then met with with fierce violence and oppression. That blackout persists. So what is your sense as best, you know, to the Iranian people? How are they processing all of this? Are they able to get information? Do you think they're even they're aware of what is happening within their own borders?
SEBASTIAN WALKER: So yeah, I mean, during our filming trip, it's, it's very challenging to work as a journalist on the ground in Iran. There are a lot of limitations. You're constantly, you know, accompanied by government affiliated translators who essentially act as minders. So it's often hard to kind of have a fully authentic conversation with everyday Iranians. But, you know, working with our reporting partners at the Washington post, Bellingcat and evident media, we're also able to look at, you know, the open source social media feeds and, you know, communicate with people on the ground in Iran.
(…)
