Now please explain to me what the Brits or the Canadians are covering, and what information they are giving that US media isn't giving.  Let's look at The Economist.  On occasion they give in-depth country and regional surveys.  They have given several on Iran in the past decade and take pains to explain to the reader how their government works.  And believe me, those country surveys are very detailed.  A few weeks ago they had a lengthy article on the Iranian elections and some analysis as to how they would go. 

The Brits in particular do NOT take events in other countries at face value.  If Iran or North Korea are despicable dictatorships - they are - they go to great lengths to point this out.

I cannot comment much on Canadian media as the recent difficulties I have had with the Internet here in the study have essentially blotted out The National, but if you wish to see it yourself and want to be the judge, go here.  My experience is that they will cover news and events in other countries the United States will not touch. 

I still don't know a whole lot about this reform guy.  Blow some cash on a subscription to The Economist, or hit their website.  (Not much is reported on the election in the latest edition but I expect to see a LOT more next week.)From what I remember from past editions is that he is a "reformist" in the sense that Khatami (1997-2005) was: he might make one or two halting steps, and might soften the image of Iran around the world to some, but ultimately he is as beholden to the mullahs as anyone else.  You need to understand that this election doesn't mean quite so much: the Council of Guardians and the Ayatollah have the real power in the country, not the President and the Majlis.  President Carter failed to grasp this in 1979 and it burned him.  Thirty years later, nothing much has changed. 

I do know he is supposed to be very loyal to the clergy in Iran. Is he really any more pro-west?  Again, from everything I have heard and read about Mousavi, he is as pro-West as the mullahs will tolerate.  To me, he is yet another Khatami that will eventually prove ineffective. 

I've got to admit, these couple of posts praising the European's media and not criticizing it as socialist propaganda, seem a little rare for this site.  The one thing I like about European media is that you can read them (for the most part) without BS filters.  Everyone there knows what the publications' biases are.  For instance, no Frenchman reads Le Monde in horror at its Socialist bent.  This is obvious, and plain as day.  The French readers buy it knwoing what they will be reading.  European attitudes towards media are different than in this country.  Organizations like the MRC exist in the United States because we have been taught to believe that the media outlets in this country can and should be objective at all costs.  When the media outlets fail to live up to this standard we culturally hold them to, enter organizations like the MRC.  I can't imagine there being a European equivalent to the MRC based on cultural differences and the expectations of European versus American media consumers. 

Another example is my good publication, The Economist.  It was born as a staunch advocate of free trade and remains so.  By page 10 you will know their approaches to the news within its pages because it puts its biases UP FRONT.  This is one major reason I like them and stick with them in spite of their advocacy for carbon taxes, drug legalization, abolition of the death penalty, and their endless gushing over His Majesty The Shahinshah.  I can read these editorials, tuck them in the back of my head, and have a much easier time reading the issue, because I will know where it comes from. 

It may seem like an advertisement for them, but this is really not all that unusual in Europe.  I cannot think of a publication or an outlet that assumes the pretense of being objective, except MAYBE government-owned outlets (there are many of these). 

I really don't doubt what you are saying. I have not followed the European coverage of the elections. Whats the big difference? More coverage or more in depth coverage?  If the Europeans are doing what I think they are doing, they have been following the story a lot longer and a lot more closely.  Aiding this is the fact that it is easier for them to get journalists in-country: many, if not all, have diplomatic relations with Iran, even if they are testy relations.  (I once bluntly put it to a German woman, who asked me once why things are as they are between Iran and the United States, "You still have an embassy there.  Ours was overrun and seized even as our cops protected theirs in the States.")  An unrelated example: years before people in the United States even heard of the Taliban, the Germans were doing front-page stories on them in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (I have a rudimentary enough knowledge of German so I could read the story and grasp the gist of it.)  Therefore, I would expect the Europeans to be giving Iran longer and much more in-depth coverage than any U.S. media outlet.

What I've seen is almost without a doubt , press pooled. What have you seen different- on what news show?  How do you know what you have seen is "press pooled", provided by Iranian authorities, or provided by other journalists from other countries?  I sincerely wish I could answer this.  But right now my PC is blind as a bat as far as most Internet capabilities go.  But I suggest moving outside the realm of U.S. media in the coverage of this and other international events.  For instance, do you know how much hot water Gordon Brown is in these days?  That the NDP won Nova Scotia in recent provincial elections?  Or that peace has come to Sri Lanka after the Tamil Tigers, along with its leaders, met with a violent end?  Probably not, as the media in the United States does not know and does not care about these things. 

"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)