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At least one caller to the St. Petersburg Times thought it was a corporate media conspiracy to silence Arab voices on TV.
But audio problems that marred 15 minutes of a roundtable discussion among Arab media professionals on CNN on Monday actually were the result of a lightning strike on a transmitter at the cable network's Atlanta headquarters, a Turner Broadcasting spokeswoman said.
The strike, which came just after 1 p.m., also briefly disrupted transmission of other Turner Broadcasting networks, including CNN International, CNN Headline News, TCM Digital, Cartoon Network, TNT West, TNT HD, Boomerang, TBS West and Turner South.
The longest disruption occurred on CNN, where the loss of audio came at the start of "The Arab Pulse," an hourlong discussion among Arab journalists on the coming handover of power in Iraq.
The show was scheduled to be rebroadcast at 4 a.m. this morning.
- Compiled from reports by Times staff writer Eric Deggans and Times wires.