Spirit of America will produce news coverage of Iraq’s January 30 elections for broadcast in the United States. The news content will be largely based on a grassroots news and blogger reporting network established in Iraq by Friends of Democracy – an Iraqi organization that SoA is supporting. The newscast will have a companion election news Web site.

Iraq’s elections are an historic event. Major networks and newspapers are likely to provide limited coverage that focuses on the expected violence and bad news. This partial story undermines the Iraqis that are struggling to build a free and democratic nation. It also discourages the Americans whose continued support is essential to Iraq’s success.

Not Sugar Coated

Our goal is to ensure that Americans get a full picture of Iraq’s elections. This will not be a “sugar-coated” accounting - just a complete and accurate one that goes beyond the typical “if it bleeds, it leads” coverage of events in Iraq. Ideally, with sufficient advance publicity, this newscast will be viewed as the source people go to for coverage of Iraq’s elections. Throughout the broadcast we will highlight, in Public Service Announcement format, the reconstruction and democratization projects in Iraq that viewers can support.

PROGRAMMING The newscast will be similar to coverage of the U.S. Presidential election except that the foundation will be grassroots, ground-level reporting from Iraq. Based in Washington, DC a host/anchor will cover breaking news and lead discussion among a rotating expert panel with photos, reports and video coming in from Iraq via Friends of Democracy and other sources throughout the broadcast. There will also be in-depth, one-on-one interviews with key guests. And, bloggers will play a central role (see below). As much emphasis will be placed on context and analysis (e.g., what the election means to Iraq, the Middle East and the world) as on specific events and election results. The newscast will be very interactive with interaction with correspondents, bloggers and others in Iraq via telephone, the Internet and, where possible, via video.

ROLE OF BLOGGERS We expect this effort to be a powerful example of how blogging (aka “Internet publishing”) can be integrated into broadcast (and vice versa). Blogs and blogging will have a role never played before in a television broadcast. This has two elements – Iraqi bloggers and U.S. bloggers.

Iraqi bloggers will serve as a central source of news, photographs and reporting coming out of Iraq (see below).

We will have 5 or 6 leading U.S. bloggers in studio participating in the newscast. Some of this will be on camera with the anchor and other guests. Some will be “off camera” with the bloggers in the background of the main newscast (picture the bloggers as the background newsroom).

The U.S. Bloggers will:

• Read, analyze, blog on and report on news coming in from Iraq (with the assistance of translators as needed).
• Do "live blogging" of the newscast – what’s being discussed by the anchor and guests, what’s be overlooked
• Participate in on-camera discussions with the anchor and other guests.
• Conduct (and blog) off-camera interviews of newscast guests, asking questions that weren’t asked on camera.

Additionally, we will seek bloggers in other countries to comment and blog on coverage of the elections in their local/national media.

NEWS SOURCES The primary source of reports, photographs and video will be through an election information network in Iraq established by Friends of Democracy. The Friends of Democracy election network will have three main components:

1. News correspondents hired by Friends of Democracy at the local level (every province and major city will be covered). The FoD correspondents will be equipped with digital cameras, camcorders and satellite phones and will be able to provide multimedia reports . Each correspondent will also have a blog (using SoA’s Arabic blogging tool) to publish their reports on the Internet.
2. Iraqi bloggers that use SoA’s Arabic blogging tool to create blogs on democracy and the elections. To stimulate the creation of election news blogs throughout Iraq, FoD will have a contest for “Best Election Blog” with a $1,000 prize in each of Iraq’s 18 provinces.
3. FoD will encourage all Iraqis to email stories, reports and digital photographs to FoD on election day. There may be some sort of prize associated with this as well.

Other information sources for the broadcast will include:

• Email and call-ins from other sources in Iraq (e.g., US and Coalition military and civilian personnel).
• Footage and reports from other media in Iraq (we will seek re-broadcast rights to content from local television in Iraq, e.g., Al Iraqiya, Al Sharqiya, Al Feyha)

DISTRIBUTION At a minimum, the broadcast will be streamed over the Internet and highlights will be available as downloadable and emailable files. We will also seek regular broadcast carriage on DirecTV and Cable TV as “FreeView” programming.