KNN

KNN is an independent Kurdish media group

KNN (Kurdish News Network) was founded in 2008 as a subsidiary of the Wusha Corporation, an independent Kurdish media group, and first started broadcasting on the 31st of December 2008.

KNN has been found as an independent channel linked with Wusha Cooperation for Kurdish Independent media, but Following the Gorran Conference in 2014, the media channels of Gorran Movement has been collected in a single organ of Gorran Movement which includes ( KNN tv Channel, Gorran Radio, Gorran website and Sbeiy website and KNNC.

KNN is primarily a Kurdish-language channel; its main remit is local and international current-affairs. However, KNN reports extensively on the economy, politics, sport, culture, documentaries and the arts. News updates are supplemented by in-depth interviews with prominent Kurdish politicians and thinkers.Also, KNN produces a wide variety of documentaries and local-interest programmes, plus adapting foreign programming for Kurdish viewers.

The channel is headquartered in Grdi Zargata, Slemani, Iraqi Kurdistan Region, and employs journalsists and correspondents across the region over 300 people in its offices.

KNN has a network of correspondents throughout Kurdistan and Iraq, as well as permanent local offices in Irbil (Hawler) and Kirkuk. And also has an office in Istanbul, Turkey.

KNN is unique in Kurdistan in that it was the only news channel not under the direct control of one of the major political parties in the region, and as such was the only televised media outlet at the time its founding which could be considered fully independent and truly objective in the selection of its material and its reporting.

One of the major repercussions of the domination of media that are run by some political parties is that they only broadcast news related to government activity and their policies in a positive light. Conversely, KNN seeks to give a more balanced presentation of the events and in-depth analyses in the region through addressing the negative aspects of the system, instead of merely highlighting the positives.

The channel does, though, conform to the wider agenda of the Wusha Corporation, which is to address the inequalities and barriers to reform that plague the Kurdistan region. KNN's aim is to promote political, educational, intellectual, social and economic reform to better serve the Kurdish people.

The channel attempts to address the aforementioned problems in order to empower the Kurdish citizens to move towards a more democratic state and society.

KNN's philosophy is based on the assertion that freedom of expression is a right and not a privilege; therefore, seeks to be both an information provider- a medium for people to express their views- and a public arena in which debate is encouraged rather than suppressed.