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This article looks at the state of broadcasting and journalism in Iraq, as of June 2004. In December 2003, some 290 publications, in addition to one television station and innumerable local radio stations, were operating in Iraq, according to a count by Gareth Bayley, the Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman to the Iraqi and Arabic media. Of the 130 or so publications that still come out regularly, only about 10 are daily newspapers. The lack of independent Iraqi media comes down to simple economics. Editor Hassan Fattah says the loss of "Iraq Today's" main funder and security concerns led him to close the paper, although there is still an online version. For the most part, the only organizations with enough money and desire to launch a media outlet are political parties. Most newspapers and radio stations, for better or worse, are openly run with a political agenda. Iraqi journalists often make up the majority of reporters at press conferences, and they are not afraid to demand answers from the U.S. spokespeople on the parochial as well as the political. They have insisted that a family whose car was crunched by a military Humvee get restitution, and they pointedly asked why the U.S. has refused to back immediate, direct elections.