Description

KNN (Kurdish News Network) was founded in 2008 as a subsidiaryofthe Wusha Corporation, an independent Kurdish media group,andfirst started broadcasting on the 31st of December 2008. KNNhasbeen found as an independent channel linked with WushaCooperationfor Kurdish Independent media, but Following the GorranConferencein 2014, the media channels of Gorran Movement has beencollectedin a single organ of Gorran Movement which includes ( KNNtvChannel, Gorran Radio, Gorran website and Sbeiy website andKNNC.KNN is primarily a Kurdish-language channel; its main remitislocal and international current-affairs. However, KNNreportsextensively on the economy, politics, sport, culture,documentariesand the arts. News updates are supplemented byin-depth interviewswith prominent Kurdish politicians andthinkers.Also, KNN producesa wide variety of documentaries andlocal-interest programmes, plusadapting foreign programming forKurdish viewers. The channel isheadquartered in Grdi Zargata,Slemani, Iraqi Kurdistan Region, andemploys journalsists andcorrespondents across the region over 300people in its offices. KNNhas a network of correspondentsthroughout Kurdistan and Iraq, aswell as permanent local officesin Irbil (Hawler) and Kirkuk. Andalso has an office in Istanbul,Turkey. KNN is unique in Kurdistanin that it was the only newschannel not under the direct control ofone of the major politicalparties in the region, and as such wasthe only televised mediaoutlet at the time its founding which couldbe considered fullyindependent and truly objective in the selectionof its materialand its reporting. One of the major repercussions ofthe dominationof media that are run by some political parties isthat they onlybroadcast news related to government activity andtheir policies ina positive light. Conversely, KNN seeks to give amore balancedpresentation of the events and in-depth analyses inthe regionthrough addressing the negative aspects of the system,instead ofmerely highlighting the positives. The channel does,though,conform to the wider agenda of the Wusha Corporation, whichis toaddress the inequalities and barriers to reform that plaguetheKurdistan region. KNN's aim is to promote political,educational,intellectual, social and economic reform to betterserve theKurdish people. The channel attempts to address theaforementionedproblems in order to empower the Kurdish citizens tomove towards amore democratic state and society. KNN's philosophyis based on theassertion that freedom of expression is a right andnot aprivilege; therefore, seeks to be both an informationprovider- amedium for people to express their views- and a publicarena inwhich debate is encouraged rather than suppressed.