This was inevitable, given the enormous success of Air America Radio:
(EFL)
Before, there were no means to directly raise funds from people around the world. Now, the web allows millions to band together and raise capital to compete with corporate media outlets. Think of the 15 million people who demonstrated against war in Iraq on one day in 2003. Think of the internet fundraising successes of MoveOn.org and the Howard Dean presidential campaign. Members of the Dean fundraising operation are already on board.
Note that they claim to respect "diversity of opinion"
yet are already committed to a specific viewpoint, as though no others exist.
The Launch Plan
The network is raising a $7 million start-up budget from individual donors and foundations. The MacArthur, Ford and Phoebe Haas Trust foundations and the Canadian Auto Workers Union have contributed to a planning study. In its next phase, IWTnews will build the online community necessary for an international mass fundraising campaign launching in early 2006. The campaign will use concerts and media events headlined by socially-conscious celebrities to drive the internet fundraising. If half a million people in the entire world contribute just $50, IWTnews will secure the $25 million it needs to fund its first year of broadcasting, in 2007.
The Programming
To be seen on satellite, digital TV and the web, IWTnews is also negotiating alliances with public and nonprofit channels to carry its programming. IWTnews will cover the big issues -- war and peace, political campaigns, environment, global economy, civil rights, labor issues and social policy. IWTnews will hire journalists for their experience, political acumen and understanding of history. Complex issues will be addressed with energy, bite and wit. Citizen journalism will bring insight from people around the world. Informed by a commitment to social justice and respecting diversity of opinion, IWTnews will focus on news other media ignore or suppress, and on individuals and groups that are transforming the world.
Translation: Authoritarian propaganda and Michael-Moorish Goebbelism that fails to pass the smell test on other outlets.
Check out their programming and the videos. Arch-lefty Goebbelist Howard Zinn will be a regular guest, as will such luminaries as Medea Benjamin, Helen Caldicott, Linda Foley, Janeane Garofalo, and Gore Vidal.
This entire effort is based on a strawman, the notion that the business interests of commercial media are best served by promoting the conservative agenda. This fantasy version of the "corporate media" has become an obsession with left-conformists, largely thanks to Chomsky's ludicrous screed, Manufacturing Consent. As we have seen many times, the actual agenda of the corporate media is to sell ads and for 40 years this has best been done by pushing the pseudo-rebel lefty line. This meme has dominated mass media culture for decades, as documented in Thomas Frank's The Conquest of Cool. These fools do not offer an alternative to institutional media interests and values, they are its purest expression. They are not rebels opposing the establishment, they are fanatics who don't think the establishment goes far enough. 
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