Saad Mohseni, 45, was named by Time magazine, one of the most influential people for 2011 and the most influential media figure in Afghanistan..
Chairman of Moby Group, one of Afghanistan’s largest media companies, Mohseni owns ToloTV and Arman radio; the country’s most popular TV and radio networks. He also owns a music-recording, a second TV network, an advertising agency, a television and movie production company, the magazine Afghan Scene, and two Internet cafés.
Saad Mohseni is called the Rupert Murdoch of Afghanistan. An extravagant comparison but it gives an idea of his influence and accomplishments. In 2009 he partnered with Murdoch’s News Corporation to create the Farsi 1 satellite network, which packages entertainment programs in Dubai and beams them from England into Iran.
Mohseni has been widely criticized and been denounced as “un-Islamic” by fundamentalists for allowing women to appear alongside men on his TV and radio networks. Also, for allowing women to compete alongside men on one of his hit shows “Afghan Star”, and for showing unveiled women on Indian soap operas. He has also been threatened with arrest for his comments and reports on government incompetence, vote fraud and corruption. He has been called a Zionist in Iran and an Iranian sympathizer in Afghanistan. He has been accused to be an American agent for his opposition to the Taliban and staunchly pro-American “propaganda.” As a result, when he travels, Mohseni is met at the airport by three sport utility vehicles filled with gun-carrying guards.
If I get the chance to interview him, my question would be: After all the threats that you have received, do you think it was worth it?
The sources that I used in addition to Time are The New Yorker, NPR and USA Today.
I chose those media outlets because they are big names that have a large number of readership and they have proven over the years to be reliable sources of information.
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