Al-Hurra

It's the DNA Stupid

Television Takeover

A cornerstone of democracy is a free press.  Right?  Controlling the news in the electronic age is also the first priority for totalitarian regimes seeking to overthrow democracies, e.g. Hitler's Goebbels franchise, the Democratic party, Islamo fascist Al-Jazeera.   Launching Iraq into a new era of democratic rule, then, required a reliable broadcast voice, a bulwark against forces with an interest in seeing Iraq fail at democracy.  To that end, the American taxpayer has been funding Al-Hurra television  ''Fighting to create a secular democracy in Iraq, parliamentarian Mithal al-Alusi had come to rely on at least one TV network to help further freedom".  Suddenly, however, the station's broadcasting philosophy did an about face, treating positive news much like the New York Times and CNN do here, that is - ignore it. Then the station recently stunned its Board of Governors by broadcasting most of a speech by Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah..  So what happened?  A Baath Party infiltration?  Al-Qaeda moles?  Close. The airing of the Nasrallah speech is a sign of the network's new direction since it was taken over by a longtime CNN producer, Larry Register, last November. <snip> Within weeks of becoming news director, Mr. Register put his own stamp on the network. Producers and on-air talent quickly understood that change was underway. Investigations into Arab government wrongdoing or oppression were no longer in vogue, and the ban on turning the airwaves over to terrorists was lifted.... The rest of the story