Iraq's 'PBS' accused of sectarian slant

"BAGHDAD (The Christian Science Monitor) By Charles Levinson – In the press office of Iraq's Kurdish President Jalal Talibani, a half-dozen staffers monitor CNN, Saudi-financed Al Arabiya, and the local news channel Al Iraqiya, which is state funded, but independent - in theory.
Nearly 50 percent of Iraqis tune into Al Iraqiya, so Mr. Talibani's media adviser, Hiwa Osman, sees to it that his staff does, too.

Mr. Osman, however, has few kind words for the country's leading network, founded in 2003 by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). "It's supposed to be a public service broadcaster ... they should be providing a service for all the people, but they are providing a service only for certain people in government," he says.

Like much of the government in the new Iraq, Al Iraqiya is dominated by Shiites, and critics like Osman say that Iraq's version of America's Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has simply become a propaganda tool for the country's leading Shiite politicians. Al Iraqiya was meant to stand as a model for a burgeoning independent press, but seems to have instead become one more political spoil for its competing factions."
The Kurdistani