Pakistan's airwaves: On militant turf, Radio Khyber offers a ... "Until Radio Khyber started news reporting, the FM mullahs were winning the dial wars," says Aurangzaib Khan, the manager of Media Development at Internews Pakistan in Peshawar, an international nonprofit that trains radio journalists ... <http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0313/p01s01-wosc.html>
[excerpt] Peshawar, Pakistan - Kishwar yanks at her veil, caught in the sound equipment of a cramped radio production studio, and pins it back. "It's hard to be the voice of anything with all this cloth on my face," she jokes, alluding to her station's tag line, "The Voice of Khyber." Kishwar, who, like others in this story, asked to have her last name withheld for security, is one of 15 reporters for Radio Khyber, a rare nonextremist station broadcasting in the town of Jamrud, in the militant stronghold of Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas. Airwaves in this region are filled with the illegal broadcasts of "FM mullahs" preaching about "holy war" and recruiting fighters. Radio Khyber, launched in 2006 with government support, provides an alternative to the hard-line clerics with its medley of local news, talk shows, and music. But it treads carefully, trying to avoid backlash from either the militants who criticize the playing of music or the Pakistani government, which dislikes its news coverage in this sensitive region. _______________________________________________ cr-india mailing list [email protected] https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india
