Flint has a point, as he normally does
(he just tends to never see or not acknowledge the point on the other side
.
Yes there was western reporter presence of Iran's green movement. The majority of western reporters left much later into the movement. And absolutely there is a very, very large difference in the bias of reporting. For example, I remember Christian Amanpour of CNN reporting on demonstrations. After the first couple million man marches in Tehran, when AN finally mustered his own rally, be zoore sandis otoboos o gheyre, Amanpour said, there were "tens of thousands present in opposition rallies" and there are "hundreds of thousands present in pro AN rally." I can quote you some other instances.
Secondly, no, Obama did not just give a tepid support for the demonstrators, he all but stated that he sides with AN, in fact he really said it, just not in those exact terms. Do you guys forget what his spokesman said? Talk about short memories.
Obama without a shadow of a doubt supported AN during the Green movement. His idea was that, this is a token of goodwill towards AN and Sepah, and he in return expected that they would sit down and make up with the US and do the few little things that America wants of them. How stupid, how naive. It was only much, much after the fact when the administration realized that AN and Sepah are not going to play ball that they started expressing support for the Green movement. And that support is meant only as a tool for getting AN and Sepah to just do a few little things America wants of them, not because they are in any way shape or form interested in regime change or even a fundamental shift in Iran.