{"id":472,"date":"2010-04-21T16:02:51","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T16:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/magazine\/?page_id=472"},"modified":"2017-09-06T11:38:41","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T15:38:41","slug":"scene-again","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/back-issues\/y2008\/spring08\/departments\/scene-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Scene Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feb. 13, 1980, was Day 102 of the hostage crisis in Tehran, Iran. But for globetrotting freelance journalist William Worthy \u201942<\/a>, it was just another day in just another post-revolution country.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In this photograph by Randy Goodman, William Worthy (center) sets up a question-answer session at a Tehran hotel with Hossein Sheikholislam (left) and Massoumeh Ebtekar (right), spokespeople for the students who held 52 U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days.<\/p>\n

Ebtekar, often interviewed by U.S. journalists during the crisis, was dubbed \u201cScreaming Mary\u201d by the media. Now a professor of immunology in Tehran, she talked to Matt Lauer of the Today Show last September about the status of women in her country. Sheikholislam, meanwhile, became Iran\u2019s deputy foreign minister and ambassador to Syria.<\/p>\n

As a journalist, Worthy was drawn to societies that had revolted against oppressive, U.S.-backed regimes. At the same time, he believed the U.S. media\u2019s foreign coverage favored American interests. \u201cYou have to talk about the imperialist press when you talk about the mass media,\u201d he told an MIT audience in 1973.<\/p>\n

Perhaps because of this, Worthy had the U.S. government frequently nipping at his heels. In a well-publicized incident in the 1950s, he couldn\u2019t get his passport renewed after traveling to off-limits China. To a Senate subcommittee investigating the affair in 1957, Worthy said, \u201cI want my passport. And I want it now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Worthy, self-described as a pacifist and civil libertarian with a \u201crebel temperament,\u201d never tired of the hassle nor wavered from a belief in the value of his work in a democratic society. For that, he recently received the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism from Harvard\u2019s Nieman Foundation for Journalism.<\/p>\n

Photographer Randy Goodman traveled with Worthy and recalls that \u201che just never rested. Sometimes I\u2019d just want to get something to eat,\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n

Worthy did eat \u2014 often while working. One night in Iran, he interviewed Hossein Sheikholislam over dinner, seeking insights into both the crisis and Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolution. As Worthy later reported in The Boston Phoenix: \u201cMartyrdom is a concept very dear…. If one is killed in the struggle, one\u2019s ideas live on, and one\u2019s work is picked up and carried to fruition by others.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feb. 13, 1980, was Day 102 of the hostage crisis in Tehran,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"parent":455,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-472","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10788,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/472\/revisions\/10788"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}