TV viewers in Iraq want to laugh and be entertained. Unlike voyeuristic viewers elsewhere in the Middle East, who gravitate more toward pan-Arabic satellite news channels where mayhem matters, TV viewers in Iraq prefer local knockoffs of the "The Newlywed Game," "Saturday Night Live," and lottery programs.

During the invasion of Iraq and for several months afterward, there were 700 embedded reporters with U.S. and coalition troops. Literally thousands of stories flowed from those reporters: from inside battle zones; from the streets of Baghdad where a young person would be observed rubbing the sole of the shoe on a toppled statue of Saddam Hussein dragged through the street; from dancing crowds enveloping coalition troops. All this in news reports helped shape early public perceptions about the Iraq war.

More movies are produced in Bollywood than in Hollywood, or anywhere else on earth. Some 900 films per year are released from Bollywood, in the teeming commercial hub city of Mumbai, known for centuries as Bombay, in India.

As Karen Hughes begins to settle into her new office, she must see that one priority for U.S. public diplomacy is to get reporters out of Baghdad.

No, not get reporters out of Iraq: Just get them out of their bureaus in the capital.

The hottest news broadcaster these days is not one of the American network news anchors. He is not even an American, but a Russian. His name is Andrei Babitsky ("The Evening News, with Andrei Babitsky"?)

He is, of all things, a U.S. government-funded employee, a broadcast news correspondent for the congressionally-supported Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

It's back to Cold War days at the Voice of America. The Russian government is still trying to block VOA programs from entering the country, but not succeeding totally.

During the Cold War, a Soviet Union "jammer" would transmit static over the radio frequency of a foreign news broadcast aimed for audiences behind the Iron Curtain to render the radio signal inaudible. Broadcast interference is much more sophisticated as practiced in today's Russia, and the VOA and other international programmers are once again being put to the test.

Al-Jazeera is ramping up to test Fox News and CNN on their home turf. The Qatar-based Arabic news channel, scheduled to launch its English-language service in the U.S. and Canada early next year, has retained the public relations firm Brown Lloyd James (BLJ) to help build its base in the world’s most lucrative and challenging commercial marketplace.

Washington, DC - July 28, 2005 - There are several interesting stories behind the recent award ceremony that took place at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Voice of America.