From WNYKRC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield. As the war in Iraq continues, the White House has grown increasingly concerned that the news reported back home is only the bad news,

filtered by major news organizations to exclude the positive developments on the road to Iraqi democracy.

To circumvent the problem, the White House has been developing a government-run news network,

what they call C-SPAN Baghdad.

The network will feature a constant stream of whatever the U.S. government wants the U.S. public to see,

press conferences, briefings, and,

in all likelihood, very little coverage of military misfortunes. Joe Hagan broke this story last

week in The New York Observer, and he joins us now to discuss it. Joe, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. Let's talk about legality for a moment. Some have suggested that this feed might be a violation of the Smith-Munt Act, which prohibits the government from using Voice of America broadcasts that are aired abroad, domestically, protecting Americans from American propaganda.

It also raises the specter of a sort of state TV. Is this state TV?

It would be state TV if everybody had to watch it. It's a feed that can be picked up with the

discretion of whoever is broadcasting. The creators of this have said that they're unhappy with

the way the networks have been editing their news conferences

and their daily highlights. They're hoping that this will be picked up without all of that editing,

without the filter, quote unquote, possibly having the local affiliates air this stuff

in a more uncut way. It really would depend, I suppose, if the local affiliates don't make it clear to their viewers

that what they're seeing is a government-created press release and not necessarily something that's

been vetted by journalists. The government apparently is banking here that the local news

stations who pick up this feed will be less discriminating and skeptical than the network news organizations

that the White House is so troubled by. But is that a fair assumption? Local news stations

weren't all that pliant a few weeks ago when the president gave them interviews with the same

...