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# Posted 4:36 PM by Patrick Belton

BRINGING C-SPAN TO IRAQ: Or D-SPAN, perhaps, in honor of its portion of the Syrian desert, and lack of sea other than a few kilometers of the Gulf... At any rate, Claudia Winkler presents an excellent argument in the Standard that the U.S. needs to pay more attention to creating a credible mass media presence oriented around spreading support for democracy - an argument which Max Kampelman made last week as well in an (offline) letter to the Washington Post.

The travails of the Iraqi media, both independent and U.S.-backed, have been covered in depth in pieces by Netherlands Radio, a report by the BBC World Service Trust (also this), and the Guardian; excerpts from the indigenous press are regularly catalogued here by MEMRI.

The Beltway received wisdom, at the moment, lays a fair portion of blame for the weakness of the US-backed media presence at the feet (or postal drops) of paralyzing bureaucratic battles between the government bureaucracies involved. Winkler and Kampelman couldn't be more right on, in saying that Washington must find a way to provide a media presence for the interim government, and that the focus of that media's broadcasting should be strongly on democracy - in Iraq, and in other democracies around the world. This isn't too much to ask for, and it's keenly needed.

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