There have been times during the Syrian War when I've wondered, especially when I'm bouncing around on the edge of a limb: 'Am I all by myself? Doesn't anybody else read FARS?' It turns out the Jerusalem Post reads FARS and even quotes the agency in a headline. Actually two headlines in recent days -- although the second headline is quoting a Reuters story that sources a FARS report.
I confess that I don't read JP on a regular basis so it's possible they've earlier quoted FARS. But given that I see quite a number of Reuters reports and would've remembered if I'd seen them quote FARS before this time, it's possible that the international press is starting to pay attention to FARS since last week when the U.S. ratcheted up war talk against Iran.
If my guess is correct it would be a relief because I get tired of feeling I have to explain myself every time I feature a slew of FARS reports, which as everyone who follows this blog knows is frequently. As I mentioned earlier this year, Iran doesn't have as many eyes on the ground in Syria as they did when several of their militias were fighting there on the side of the Syrian government, but as I also noted FARS compensated by closely watching and reporting on what a large number of Arabic Middle Eastern press outlets report about the Syrian war effort. This has involved a great deal of translation work for English-speaking readers. As I also mentioned this included translating into English Sputnik Arabic reports on the Syrian War, most of which weren't featured on the Russian site's English version.
But for years FARS 'eyes on the ground' reporting on the kinetic aspect of the Syrian war was invaluable to me -- and this despite the fact that I had to be prepared to separate the chaff of propaganda from the grain of their Syrian War sitreps.
It's been the same for their reporting on the very complicated situation in Syria regarding Kurdish actions there. (As to other types of FARS reports, I pay little to no attention to them unless they're specifically talking about Saudi Arabia -- a topic which can be rife with propaganda on both sides but is still useful information.)
If the international press is indeed starting to pay attention to FARS, this could translate into the public in the West getting better informed on the Syrian War -- or at least getting a different view of it than the one fostered by the Western mainstream news media. But to quash hope, this wouldn't translate into TV audiences in the U.S. getting a different view. It would take a major change in U.S. policy on the Middle East, which doesn't seem likely at this time, before Americans who get their news from television have any idea of what's really going on in Syria and what the U.S. and its allies are up to there. I'd assume this point extends to mainstream TV reporting in all NATO countries -- although I'd say far more Europeans supplement their TV watching with reading press reports than do Americans.
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