Building a Left Wing CNN

Independent World Television will go public on June 15. The goal, as bold as it is big, is to create an alternative news and current affairs network that is, as its name implies, global in reach and free from corporate or government pressures.

The network’s success depends on changing the economics of media, with an audacious plan to raise $25 million a year made up of $50 donations from half a million people around the world. Money from business, advertisers and government will be prohibited.

Independent World Television is the brain child of Paul Jay, a Toronto-based award-winning documentary film-maker who made the film Return to Kandahar. Jay is also former executive producer of CBC Newsworld’s debate program Counterspin and the founder of Hot Docs.

If successful, IWTnews will have its own digital TV channels in Canada, the U.S. and other countries, and programming will be offered on its web site. Jay and his associates are negotiating with public and non-profit channels in North America, Europe and elsewhere to carry IWT programs. Link TV will carry IWT programming, ensuring that 25 million U.S. home will have access to IWT shows.

(click headline link for more)