From The New York Times: After being wrongly maligned as “assassins” in a Reuters news report last month, female ninjas in Iran may have found the pen momentarily mightier than the sword. But as Reuters discovered after correcting the report, the heavy hand of government can be even stronger in Iran.
The news agency said Thursday that officials had suspended the press credentials of its entire staff in Iran over errors in a February 16 video report on Iranian women trained in the ancient Japanese martial art of Ninjutsu.
The suspension, by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, followed a report by Iran’s semiofficial Press TV that some of the women were filing lawsuits over the report, originally titled “Thousands of female Ninjas train as Iran’s assassins.” The report itself did not make the same assertion as the headline, Stephen J. Adler, the editor in chief of Reuters News, said in an interview.