With a star-studded team of certified, dyed-in-the-wool progressive nutbars of every flavor, including Medea Benjamin, Tony Benn, Helen Caldicott, Linda Foley (yes!), Janeane Garofalo, Naomi Klein, Gore Vidal, and Howard Zinn, Independent World Television is poised to capture the enormous, heretofore-untapped global market for demented leftist raving. (Hat tip: Chrenkoff.)

The network is raising a $7 million start-up budget from individual donors and foundations. The MacArthur, Ford and Phoebe Haas Trust foundations and the Canadian Auto Workers Union have contributed to a planning study. In its next phase, IWTnews will build the online community necessary for an international mass fundraising campaign launching in early 2006. The campaign will use concerts and media events headlined by socially-conscious celebrities to drive the internet fundraising. If half a million people in the entire world contribute just $50, IWTnews will secure the $25 million it needs to fund its first year of broadcasting, in 2007.

To be seen on satellite, digital TV and the web, IWTnews is also negotiating alliances with public and nonprofit channels to carry its programming. IWTnews will cover the big issues — war and peace, political campaigns, environment, global economy, civil rights, labor issues and social policy. IWTnews will hire journalists for their experience, political acumen and understanding of history. Complex issues will be addressed with energy, bite and wit. Citizen journalism will bring insight from people around the world. Informed by a commitment to social justice and respecting diversity of opinion, IWTnews will focus on news other media ignore or suppress, and on individuals and groups that are transforming the world.

UPDATE at 7/3/05 6:16:00 pm:

LGF reader NC reports that MoonbatTV already exists, and you can get it on the Dish Network: Freespeech Network: Home of Free Speech TV and Free Speech Online Community.