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Politics108 outlets ran this4 min read

Iranian president calls contact with supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei 'very difficult'

Masoud Pezeshkian’s televised remarks come as Mojtaba Khamenei remains unseen since succeeding his father in March 2026

AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made

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Iranian president calls contact with supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei 'very difficult'

What this story says

  • Masoud Pezeshkian said on Iranian state television that contact with Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is 'very difficult'.
  • Mojtaba Khamenei has not made any public appearances since succeeding his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in March 2026.
  • The remarks follow reports that Mojtaba Khamenei warned Pezeshkian against resubmitting his resignation.
  • No left-rated outlet carried the story, according to the reports below.

Who covered it

Left 19%(11)Centre 23%(14)Right 58%(34)

Percentages are shares of the 59 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 49 of the 108 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .

Trust

54/100

Craft

77/100

Hype

15/100

108 sources · methodology

Missing from the left

Only 11 of the 59 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated left.

A reader who follows the left would not have seen this. We report the absence rather than explain it: outlets choose what to cover for many reasons, and we have no evidence about which one applies here.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on 5 August 2026 that communication with Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is currently 'very difficult'. The remarks were broadcast on state television. Pezeshkian did not explain what made the contact difficult.

Mojtaba Khamenei succeeded his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, after the latter was killed in US and Israeli strikes in early 2026. He has not appeared in public since taking office. Iranian state media have not released audio of him, citing concerns about revealing his location or condition.

Pezeshkian’s comments came after a reported phone call with Khalil al-Hayya, head of Hamas’s political bureau. Iranian state media said Pezeshkian told al-Hayya that Tehran would support any decision Palestinian leaders made in indirect negotiations with Israel.

What the reports disagree on

The date of the US and Israeli strikes that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is given as February 2026 by BT and as early 2026 by the Jerusalem Post. The reports do not agree on whether the strikes occurred in February or earlier in the year.

What the coverage left out

No left-rated outlet ran the story, according to the reports printed below. None of the right-rated digests mentioned the reported phone call between Pezeshkian and Hamas’s Khalil al-Hayya.

Tags:#IranLeadership#MiddleEastPolitics#SupremeLeader#USIsraelStrikes#Pezeshkian

Coverage settled. We checked this 9 times and stopped on 11 Aug 2026, 02:31. The figures above are what it finished at.

How each side covered it

Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.

Left

11 rated outlets

  • All 11 left-rated outlets reported that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian described contact with Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei as 'very difficult'. The digests agree he made the statement in a state television interview.
  • Eight of the digests noted Pezeshkian denied resignation rumours. Seven mentioned Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared in public since his appointment in March. Four linked his absence to speculation about his health or an injury during an attack that killed his father.
  • Three digests quoted Pezeshkian rejecting claims of disputes with Khamenei. Two included his statement that he would 'continue the struggle'. One digest reported Iranian officials dismissed a claim Pezeshkian had offered to resign 28 times.

Centre

14 rated outlets

  • The two centre-rated digests led on Pezeshkian’s statement that communication with Mojtaba Khamenei is 'very difficult'. France24’s digest noted that Khamenei has not appeared in public since his appointment. The Jerusalem Post’s full report added that Pezeshkian’s remarks followed a phone call with Hamas’s Khalil al-Hayya and that Mojtaba Khamenei had warned Pezeshkian against resubmitting his resignation.
  • The Jerusalem Post quoted Pezeshkian directly: 'very difficult'. It also reported that Iranian state media had avoided releasing audio of Mojtaba Khamenei, citing fears of revealing his location and condition. The report listed five methods by which a recording could expose his whereabouts.

Right

34 rated outlets

  • All six right-rated digests led on Pezeshkian’s statement that communication with Mojtaba Khamenei is 'very difficult' or 'hard'. Globo’s digest added that Pezeshkian called Khamenei’s presence 'an important source of strength'. BT’s digest noted that Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared in public since a US-Israeli attack in February 2026.
  • None of the right-rated digests mentioned the reported warning Mojtaba Khamenei sent to Pezeshkian about resubmitting his resignation. None carried the detail that Iranian state media had avoided releasing audio of the supreme leader.

Questions about this coverage

How did the left and right cover Iranian president calls contact with supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei…?
Of the 59 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 19% are rated left, 23% are rated centre, 58% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 108. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
Is Iranian president calls contact with supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei… left or right?
Neither side dominates it. Of the 59 rated outlets on this story, 19% are rated left, 23% are rated centre, 58% are rated right, and no side holds the 70% this site would want before calling a field one-sided. A story is not left or right in any case; the outlets that carried it are what carry ratings.
Is the coverage of Iranian president calls contact with supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei… biased?
Iranian president calls contact with supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei 'very difficult' is one event reported by 108 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
Which side is not reporting Iranian president calls contact with supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei…?
When we first saw this story, outlets rated left had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
Which outlets covered Iranian president calls contact with supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei…?
108 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
Why has Mojtaba Khamenei not appeared in public?
Mojtaba Khamenei has not made any public appearances since succeeding his father as Iran’s supreme leader in March 2026. Iranian state media have not released audio of him, citing concerns about revealing his location or condition.
What did Pezeshkian say about communication with Khamenei?
Masoud Pezeshkian said on Iranian state television that communication with Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is currently 'very difficult'. He did not explain what made the contact difficult.
Which outlets reported the story?
The story was carried by two centre-rated outlets and six right-rated outlets, according to the reports below. No left-rated outlet ran the story.

Read it at the source

139 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.

Left

13
Show 5 more

Centre

17
Show 9 more

Right

44
Show 36 more

Not rated

65
Show 57 more

How did this read?

About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.

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