About IMN Magazine

IMN Magazine

IMN Magazine is the magazine of the Iraqi Media Network, the Baghdad-based public broadcaster and state media conglomerate that operates Iraq's Al Iraqiya television channels, Republic of Iraq Radio, the Al-Sabah newspaper and the Iraqi News Agency. The State Media Monitor lists IMN Magazine among the network's print media assets, alongside Al-Sabah. In its newest form the title is the network's first official English-language publication: the network has launched the first issue of its English-language magazine, titled IMN, to enhance Iraq's international presence and convey a modern image of the country to the international community. The magazine is distributed to Arab and foreign embassies and diplomatic missions in Iraq, to Iraqi embassies abroad, and to ministries, universities, airports and Iraqi Airways.

The Magazine and Its English-Language Launch

The launch of the English-language IMN magazine was reported by the Iraqi News Agency and carried by Iraqi news outlets as a milestone in the network's development. The magazine, described as the first official English-language publication issued by the Iraqi Media Network, offers diverse content highlighting Iraq's economic vision, investment opportunities and development policies, along with Iraqi success stories, women's achievements, and tourism, sports and cultural topics, reflecting the transformations taking place in the country across various sectors. Its publication sits within the network's strategy of developing tools for communicating with international public opinion, providing professional content in English addressed to decision-makers, researchers, investors and those interested in Iraqi affairs. The stated editorial aim is to reflect the reality of Iraq away from stereotypes, by highlighting achievements, reforms and promising opportunities, and the launch was presented as a qualitative step in media diplomacy, contributing to a positive image of Iraq in international political, economic, academic and media circles.

Distribution: Embassies, Ministries and Airports

The magazine's distribution list defines its intended reader. Copies go to Arab and foreign embassies and diplomatic missions accredited in Iraq, and are sent to all Iraqi embassies abroad, so that the title works in both directions of the diplomatic channel: it speaks to foreign representatives in Baghdad and equips Iraq's own representatives overseas. It is also distributed to ministries and government institutions, universities and research centres, airports and Iraqi Airways, placing it in the hands of officials, academics, researchers and travellers. The network describes the magazine as a media window introducing the world to Iraq, its potential and opportunities. That is a different distribution logic from the network's mass-audience television and newspaper operations: IMN Magazine is a targeted print instrument, printed for the desks and waiting rooms where Iraq's image among decision-makers is formed.

The Network Behind the Magazine

The Iraqi Media Network was established in May 2003, under the Coalition Provisional Authority, as the legal successor to the Iraqi Radio and Television Corporation, which had served as the Ba'ath-era state media apparatus. It was created with the aim of establishing a public broadcaster similar to the BBC and America's PBS. The original network contract, eventually totalling some eight contracts worth 108.2 million dollars, was awarded to the San Diego-based Science Applications International Corporation by the United States Defense Contracting Command, to set up a twenty-four-hour news channel, Al Iraqiya, a sports channel, two FM radio stations and a national newspaper. SAIC was replaced by the United States-based Harris Corporation with a one-year contract of ninety-six million dollars in January 2004, later renewed for six months. The network's radio aired its first programmes on 10 April 2003 and Al Iraqiya television began broadcasting on 13 May 2003 with the help of some three hundred and fifty Iraqis.

Assets: Television, Radio, Print and News Agency

The magazine belongs to a conglomerate whose assets span every medium. Its television operations comprise Al-Iraqiya, Al-Iraqiya News and Al-Iraqiya Sports, channels broadcasting in Arabic, Kurdish, Turkmen and Neo-Aramaic. Its radio asset is Republic of Iraq Radio. Its print media are the Al-Sabah newspaper, whose first issue came out on 17 May 2003 and which competes for the position of most-read Iraqi daily, and IMN Magazine. Its news agency is the Iraqi News Agency. The network also maintains the Iraqi Media Training Institute and, in earlier listings of its subordinate elements, a magazine under the name Al-Shabaka. It has a branch in each Iraqi province and international bureaux that have included the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Iran, Egypt and Australia. Reported figures put the network's budget at approximately seventy-five million dollars and its workforce at approximately three thousand five hundred staff.

Governance and the 2015 Law

The 2015 Law on the Iraqi Media Network reshaped the network as a public-sector institution with legal personality, placed under the supervision of the Council of Representatives, and included formal public-service and editorial-independence language. The network is governed by a Board of Trustees nominated by the Council of Ministers and approved by the Council of Representatives; the network's president is appointed by the board, and the head of the network cannot be a member of the board. Current network materials identify Thaer Al-Ghanimi as chairman of the Board of Trustees, alongside trustees including Sanaa Saeed Halata, Hamad Mahmoud Al-Doukhi, Awsam Majid Ghanim, Islam Hassan and Aalan Abdullah Abdulrahman. The February 2024 appointments were controversial because the Council of Ministers directly designated five new trustees, prompting parliamentary criticism that the appointments should have been sent to parliament for approval. The network's president through the recent review period is Karim Hammadi, who succeeded Nabil Jassim after a contested leadership period.

The Contested Presidency of Nabil Jassim

The network's recent history includes a prolonged leadership dispute that illustrates the politics around Iraqi state media. Television presenter Nabil Jassim became president of the network in January 2020, having achieved national popularity as an anchor and programme presenter on Dijlah TV and argued on air, during the Tishreen protests, with the government's military spokesman. In 2021 and again in 2023 the Board of Trustees voted to remove him, triggering a contest between the Court of Administrative Disputes, which tried to block the move, and the Court of Cassation, which supported his removal. In January 2023 Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani personally intervened to prevent the dismissal, directing that Jassim continue in his work on the grounds that the board's decision lacked the legal basis the 2015 law required. The episode, documented in detail by the Washington Institute's profile of the network, is part of the institutional environment in which IMN Magazine is published: a state network whose leadership is a matter of national political contest.

Credibility, Reach and the Early Years

The network's flagship channel, the sibling medium against which the magazine's parent is judged, had a difficult start. Al Iraqiya initially struggled to gain credibility among Iraqis and was regarded as the voice of the occupying forces because of its close relations with the Coalition Provisional Authority; some Iraqis scornfully referred to it as America Television. Its reputation improved after the Iraqi Interim Government took control of the network: fifty per cent of Iraqis interviewed in a February 2004 poll by Oxford Research International expressed confidence in the channel, up eleven points from November 2003, and it became the most-viewed terrestrial channel, broadcast terrestrially and available to ninety-three per cent of Iraqis. Its staff, however, suffered heavily: its employees had suffered more fatalities than any other television station in Iraq, including foreign channels, and a sports anchorman, Ali Jaafar, was killed in Baghdad on 31 May 2006 by unidentified gunmen, believed to have been killed because of his affiliation with the channel. In 2015 the channel was upgraded to high-definition television.

The Network's Stated Mission

The network's official mission, as recorded in profiles of the organisation, includes ensuring professional standards in media work, participating in developing free opinion to facilitate and encourage citizens and the democratic process in all fields, encouraging patriotism and nationalism together with the country's diversity and unity, presenting news about current events in a style that emphasises inclusiveness, absence of bias and independence, reflecting the government's activities and events, encouraging innovation and promoting Iraqi cultural production, and dissociating from all cultural, religious, national or political biases by staying at the same distance from everyone. The State Media Monitor classifies the network as state-controlled, retains an expert estimate that at least eighty per cent of its funding is a state subsidy, and notes that it publishes no audited financial statements and maintains no effective editorial firewall. The English-language magazine's role inside that structure is outward-facing: within a network whose mission mixes public service with the presentation of the state, the magazine is the asset addressed to the world.

Place in Iraq's State Media System

IMN Magazine completes the print portfolio of the institution that consolidated Iraq's federal state media after 2003. Where Al-Sabah speaks daily to a mass Iraqi readership, the magazine speaks periodically, in English, to embassies, ministries, universities and travellers. Its launch as the network's first official English-language publication marks the point at which Iraq's state broadcaster, created in the weeks after the fall of the Ba'ath regime with American contracting support and reshaped by Iraqi law in 2015, decided it needed a printed voice for international public opinion. The magazine's subject matter, economic vision, investment, development, women's achievements, tourism, sport and culture, is the Iraq its publisher wants the world to see, presented, in the network's own framing, away from stereotypes. As an artifact of media diplomacy produced by a network of three and a half thousand staff, it is the smallest of the IMN's assets and the most deliberately international.