21 April 2003

'Iraq and the World' debuts today The Christian Science Monitor reports that the first of the full five-hour coalition TV packages, Iraq and the World, is scheduled to go on the air today. So viewers in Iraq are about to get their first glimpse of American TV network news in all its glory. The CSM also says that the radio station Voice of New Iraq is in Umm Qasr, not Baghdad. The station has already been confirmed operating on 1170 kHz at 1700-2100 UTC. Now that power has been restored to at least part of Baghdad, we expect to see local transmissions in the Iraqi capital very shortly. 12:26:51 PM     comment on this entry []

What's on in Baghdad Since the withdrawal of many western journalists from Iraq, it's becoming harder to get hour by hour updates on what's happening on the local media scene. But a Reuters report published today does give an insight into what people are watching and listening to: "Many Iraqis are keeping up with events through international radio stations such as the BBC, Iranian radio, Radio Monte Carlo or Radio Sawa, a U.S.-sponsored pan-Arab station. Those who have power, which generally means those using private or looted generators, can tune in to Iranian television news channel Al-Alam or watch a U.S.-British channel called Towards Freedom, which recently broadcast speeches by U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Neither channel seems very popular. The Iraqi satellite network is also off the air, and a generator from a building belonging to it is now providing Mehdi's residential area with electricity." Conspicuous by its absence from the list of stations above is the US government's other service, Radio Free Iraq. I fail to see the logic of having two different US external services beamed to Iraq. Is this, I wonder, another result of infighting between different branches of the US administration? 11:58:16 AM     comment on this entry []

© Copyright 2003 Andy Sennitt.