CNN founder Mr Ted Turner has criticised rival media mogul Mr Rupert Murdoch for what he said was his promotion of the US war in Iraq.
"He's a warmonger," Mr Turner said of Mr Murdoch, whose News Corp owns the fast-growing Fox News Channel. "He promoted it [the war]".
Fox News Channel has been the most popular US cable newsnetwork during the conflict, trumping AOL Time Warner'sCNN, which Mr Turner started more than two decades ago and that came to prominence with its blanket coverage of the 1991 Gulf War.
Asked by an audience member in San Francisco for his thoughts on Fox's larger ratings share than CNN's, Mr Turner said, "Just because your ratings are bigger doesn't mean you're better.
"It's not how big you are, it's how good you are thatreally counts," Mr Turner said.
Mr Turner, who has pledged to give $1 billion to the UnitedNations and is a vocal proponent of population control andnuclear-arms elimination, also criticised the concentration of ownership of the vast majority of US television networks,radio and TV stations and newspapers in a few corporations.
Yesterday, BBC Director General Greg Dyke saidUS broadcasters' coverage of the Iraq war was sounquestioningly patriotic and so lacking in impartiality that it threatened the credibility of America's electronic media.