THE AYATOLLAHS VS. THE IDIOT BOX:

Lights, Cameras, Revolution (CBS, Oct. 23, 2002)

The West has a secret weapon against Iran. It's a balding Iranian rock star, a Persian actor who can't get a role and a one-eyed talk show host who speaks in Farsi, all working in a small television studio on the wrong side of Hollywood.

It's called NITV, and if the Bush Administration hasn't realized its potential as a weapon, Iran's ruling ayatollahs certainly have, reports 60 Minutes II correspondent Bob Simon.

National Iranian Television sounds like the government?s official network, but it is anything but that. Watched by millions of Iranians with satellite dishes, NITV uses humor to attack the ruling Islamic regime.

NITV is the brainchild of Zia Atabay, a rock star who was known as the "Tom Jones of Iran" until the ayatollahs forced him to flee to America. Twenty years and one toupee later, he took some money from his wife's plastic surgery business and bought a former porn studio in North Hollywood.

And again we are told that ideas and the words that convey them matter... Posted by Orrin Judd at October 26, 2002 12:23 PM