Comedy Central has picked up another satirical news program, green-lighting Mideast Minute for worldwide distribution on the network’s digital platform, CC: Studios. The satire comes from writer, director, and comedian Pardis Parker, who also stars in Mideast Minute. According to Deadline, the series will be “a news show that tries to convince Middle Easterners that everything’s OK in the Middle East.” Mideast Minute will satirize U.S. propaganda efforts in the Middle East, parodying the U.S. Congress-funded Alhurra network, an Arabic-language satellite TV channel that provides an “American view” of the region, which amounts to a whole lot of pro-American bias. The network operates out of Springfield, Virginia but broadcasts only in the Middle East, where nobody watches it. American media has a tendency to homogenize and stereotype the Middle East, so hopefully Mideast Minute doesn’t fall into that category. The last thing television needs is another harmful and ahistorical portrayal of the Middle East. But it sounds like the show’s scope will zero in on and critique U.S. propaganda.
Parker’s shorts The Dance and Two Men, Two Cows, Two Guns both garnered accolades in Canada and the U.S. He also had a role on Canada’s satirical series Little Mosque On The Prairie. This marks his first project with Comedy Central.