Baghdad’s new media museum tells story of Arabic TV’s birth

In 1954, Iraq became the first Arab nation to broadcast television programs. Sixty-eight years later, the country has opened a space dedicated to the history of the Baghdad media scene -making the new Iraqi Media Museum the first of its kind in the Arab world. Its director, Mina Al-Helou, told A24 that the Museum is not a warehouse to store machines and newspapers but a dynamic space pulsating with the turbulent history of contemporary Iraq and those who documented it in real-time using modern methods of communication. The Museum also holds items that mark the beginnings of media work in Turkish and British-occupied Mesopotamia, dating over half a century, including the first equipment used in radio and archival issues of Iraqi newspapers. Halim Salman, a deputy at the Iraqi Media Network, told A24 that the Museum is a project to support media culture and tourism, as well as a resource for journalism and communication students.