Next month, it expects to launch Tolo News, a twenty-four-hour satellite news channel. In 2009, it partnered with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation to create the Farsi1 satellite network, which packages entertainment programs in Dubai and beams them from England into Iran. In fact, Mohseni has been called the Rupert Murdoch of Afghanistan, and though the comparison is extravagant, it gives a sense of his influence and ambition.
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Excellent article about a very important person and their impact on Afghanistan. Especially on Afghanistan’s future. Media like Saad’s is an excellent tool for reaching out to the population and telling them how things really are. They can communicate how ineffective Karzai and his crew is (hence why he does not like Saad) and they can communicate how immoral and murderous the Taliban are(and I am sure the Taliban want to kill him). And what better way to accomplish these important tasks of media and journalism, than to fire up a 24 hour news show.
Hopefully Murdoch and company will come in and help Saad to create entertainment that the local populations ‘cannot live without’. Stuff that really brings a smile to their face, or educates them. That is crucial, because if people come to depend upon Saad and his entertainment networks as either a means for information or just to laugh and relieve stress, and the Taliban or Government destroys that, stand by. Guess who will lose popular support?
I am sure the Taliban would love to destroy this media company while they are still small. So would a corrupt government. But as it becomes a fixture of society and something people can call their own, doom on those that would destroy it. It is also great that they continue to call upon the constitution of Afghanistan’s free speech laws, and really push the issue if programming or stories are questioned.
Of course a company like this will not go too far towards entertainment extremes, because they still have to answer to the public. But as long as they have an audience and high ratings, I say full speed ahead.
A 24 hour news show can also inform Afghanis about horrible incidents like what happened to these medical workers that were massacred recently. Or they can get the real story out about what happened with DynCorp and the accident. They can communicate edits immediately, and not wait for the next day’s newspaper or show to make that edit. It would make if very hard for misinformation campaigns to be successful, because this station would have a larger audience and were able to communicate to that audience faster and with better delivery.
What I would really like to see are talk shows on the radio, intermixed with the 24 hour news shows. In the US these are very successful combinations, and I am sure Saad is up to date on the possibilities. (hell, just copy Rupert Murdoch’s media strategies)
The other interesting thought about this is that with the race to the middle to gain popular support, media centers like this one will be important to each side’s political strategy. The Taliban would have to weigh in on the benefits of either destroying it, or working with it to gain population support. The government will have to do the same.
So with that said, one little thing we can do to help Afghanistan, is to insure that this media center is well protected and truly entertains and informs the people. And if Ted Turner wants to come in and help out another media group, so be it. The more the merrier, because competition will fire up innovation and quality entertainment. –Matt
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Afghanistan’s first media mogul.
by Ken Auletta
July 5, 2010
Every day in Kabul, politicians and journalists in search of information come to a barricaded dead-end street in the Wazir Akbar Khan district to see Saad Mohseni, the chairman of Moby Group, Afghanistan’s preëminent media company. At the last house on the right, burly men carrying AK-47s lead them up creaky stairs to a small second-floor office. Mohseni, a gregarious man with a politician’s habits, often stands up to greet visitors with a hug, then returns to his desk, where a BlackBerry, two cell phones, and a MacBook Air laptop are constantly lit up; fifteen small flat-screen TVs, set to mute, are mounted on the office walls.
Mohseni speaks so rapidly that the words sometimes run together, and he periodically interrupts himself to call out to his assistant—“Sekander!”—to make a phone call or produce a piece of paper. But he listens as intently as a psychiatrist, gathering information from an intricate network of sources: government and anti-government Afghans, American officials, foreign correspondents, diplomats, intelligence operatives, reporters, business and tribal and even Taliban leaders.