Al-Baghdadia TV is an independent Iraqi-owned[1] Arabic-language satellite channel based in Cairo, Egypt. It is considered a moderate Sunni channel.[2] During the Iraqi insurgency several prominent journalists with the station were murdered.[3] Recently, the station became known as the employer of Muntadhar al Zaidi, who threw his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush during a press conference in December 2008.[4]
That is the lede of the article about the Arabic satellite channel Al Baghdadia TV that I spent the last day researching. I was fruitless in my search for some basic information when I went to write its Wikipedia article. Such as: who owns it? When was it founded? How is it financed? Basic information is very difficult to come by on the Iraqi and Arab media.
In trying to research an article like this, it becomes jarringly apparent how little the British, American and Australian media have covered Iraqi institutions, particularly its informational institutions. It’s ridiculous. We’ve been fighting two wars in this region since 2002, and I can’t even find out who owns and finances a television station that sends a reporter to be in a stone’s throw of the U.S. President. We’ve done such a poor job in learning anything about these people, this society and this region. Here are a few statements from June 2008 on a blog called Talisman Gate that I can’t use on Wikipedia, but that are interesting as conjecture:
.…Al-Baghdadia (isn’t this Saleh al-Mutlaq’s outfit?). While ‘Baghdad’ is the IIP’s, right?
[....]
There hasn’t been a serious study on how these two dozen Iraqi satellite stations and the hundreds of newspapers in Baghdad are getting their funding. I think we’ll find money trails going all over the world when such a study emerges.” -Nibras Kazimi
Nibras was just a commenter on the Talisman Gate blog, so I don’t know how knowledgeable he is.
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Ok, i know who owns the channel, his name is Awn Al Khashlok and he also finances it, he is the president of the board and founder. He is a shi’ite Muslim
It is true that Awni and al-Zaidi are shit’ite, but al-Zaidi was and still is a baath party member,he knows that the shiaa members were treated as a shoe and they deserved it. The satellite is most likely funded by a country. Please follow the money trails, where the channel is based, who are its guests,its staff,its agenda,its message and motive, then you will find who is finances it. we know who!!.