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ALHURRA AND THE PREDICAMENT OF U.S. INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING TO THE MIDDLE EAST
JUL 10, 2008 - 3:27PM PST
by Iskra Kirova
Alhurra – “The Free One” – is a U.S. government-funded broadcaster available throughout the Middle East. Established in 2004, Alhurra, along with its FM radio counterpart, Radio Sawa (launched in 2002), represent America’s largest commitment to public diplomacy in the region. Over the last six years, the U.S. government has invested just under $500 million dollars in the two broadcasters. Overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an independent agency reporting directly to Congress, Alhurra’s mission is to promote freedom and democracy in the region through the accurate and objective representation of U.S. policies. Broadcasting from Springfield, Virginia, the station’s programming includes a mix of traditional newscasting, cultural programming, political talk shows, documentaries, as well as some American entertainment programming dubbed into Arabic. Since its inception, Alhurra has attracted controversy. In 2006, the United States General Accountability Office issued a report documenting the many challenges facing Alhurra and Radio Sawa, notably poor management and weak performance. In March 2007, Alhurra gained significant media and public attention when Joel Mowbray, a conservative syndicated columnist for Knight-Ridder and a frequent contributor to the National Review, published a series of articles in the Wall Street Journal accusing the channel of providing “platforms to Holocaust deniers and Islamic terrorists.” In these articles, Mowbray revealed that Alhurra had aired the entirety of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s December 7, 2006 speech, an explicit violation of Alhurra’s Journalistic Code of Ethics and its Congressional mandate, and that they provided extensive and deferential coverage of a Holocaust denial conference held in Tehran in December 2006. In May 2007, Congress held hearings to further examine the accusations. In a statement before Congress, Alhurra executive, Joaquin F. Blaya, acknowledged the channel’s mistakes and assured his audience that corrective measures had been taken and that terrorists and Holocaust deniers would never again use the channel as a platform. In addition to this political scrutiny, Alhurra has also faced criticism from media scholars and practitioners. Professor Shibley Telhami argues that Alhurra’s actual influence on public opinion in the region is minute given its relatively small audience share. Moreover, in the face of a growing number of Middle Eastern satellite news channels (e.g., Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and Al Manar, as well as other broadcasters funded by Western governments such as the UK’s BBC Arabic TV), former deputy director of the Voice of America Alan L. Heil argues that the likelihood of Alhurra gaining any ground against its more respected competitors is highly improbable. Arab media expert, Marc Lynch, suggests that Alhurra’s problems boil down to the impossible balance required to appease its Congressional critics while also providing coverage that resonates with an opinionated Arab audience. Lynch argues that by acquiescing to Congressional pressure and ensuring that its content best represents and promotes the U.S. agenda in the region, Alhurra quickly lost credibility among an Arab audience already critical towards much of America’s current foreign policies. In June of this year, Alhurra was once again embroiled in controversy after two scathing media reports…... FULL TEXT
News Media
Lost in Translation: Alhurra—America’s Troubled Effort to Win Hearts and Minds
(ProPublica, 22 Jun 2008)
An Arab-language television network and radio station, founded by the Bush administration to promote a positive image of the United States, has aired anti-American and anti-Israeli viewpoints, has showcased pro-Iranian policies and recently gave air time to a militant who called for the death of American soldiers in Iraq.
U.S. Network Falters in Mideast Mission
(The Washington Post, 23 Jun 2008)
Al-Hurra -- "The Free One" in Arabic -- is the centerpiece of a U.S. government campaign to spread democracy in the Middle East. Taxpayers have spent $350 million on the project. But more than four years after it began broadcasting, the station is widely regarded as a flop in the Arab world, where it has struggled to attract viewers and overcome skepticism about its mission.
Rep Calls for Investigation of Alhurra
(ProPublica, 24 Jun 2008)
The ranking member of the House foreign relations committee thinks it's time Congress takes a hard look at Alhurra. In a letter today (pdf), Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) requests that Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) "hold immediate oversight hearings and initiate an investigation" of the troubled U.S.-backed channel.
Struggling Against al-Qaeda on the Airwaves
(The Washington Post, 24 Jun 2008)
Post foreign correspondent Craig Whitlock, was online Tuesday, June 24, to discuss his articles about how the U.S. is losing its battle with al-Qaeda for hearts and minds in the Middle East. The transcript follows.
Alhurra Paid Former White House Aides, Washington Journalists
(ProPublica, 25 Jun 2008)
Alhurra, the U.S. government-funded Arabic news channel, paid former Bush and Clinton administration officials, lobbyists and high-profile Washington journalists tens of thousands of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money to appear on the network as commentators, according to interviews and a review of company records.
Al Hurra Missteps Echo Other U.S.-Backed Media
(NPR, 24 Jun 2008)
Recent missteps by Al Hurra, the U.S.-sponsored Arabic-language television network, recalls the mixed history of other U.S. radio and television networks created for foreign audiences. Broadcasts by Radio Marti and others have also been controversial.
U.S.-Funded Arab Language TV Network Under Scrutiny
(PBS, 23 Jun 2008)
A U.S. government-funded Arab language television network, Al Hurra, has been the focus of recent criticism over both its lack of viewership and content choices. Two experts discuss how the network has fared and its ties to U.S. diplomacy efforts in the Middle East.
U.S.-Funded Arab TV's Credibility Crisis
(CBS, 22 Jun 2008)
America has been struggling with its image in the Middle East for decades but, after Iraq, Arab opinion plummeted. The Bush administration felt it had to act fast to explain America to the Arab world. So it began spending about $100 million a year on a U.S. government news channel in Arabic. It's called "Al Hurra," meaning "The Free One."
Broadcasting Board of Governors Corrects the CBS 60 Minutes Story
(BBG Press Release, 23 Jun 2008)
A segment about Alhurra Television that aired Sunday night on the CBS program 60
Minutes distorted facts about the station's audience research, its coverage of Israel, and its
editorial practices.
Al-Hurra Is Thriving
(The Washington Post, 7 Jul 2008)
The June 23 front-page story about al- Hurra television, "U.S. Network Falters in Mideast Mission," failed to acknowledge the significant successes of the U.S.-funded Arabic-language broadcast and reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of U.S. international broadcasting. By law, the mission of U.S. international broadcasting is journalistic -- not propagandistic.
Alhurra’s Baghdad Bureau Mired in Controversy
(ProPublica, 8 Jul 2008)
Officials at Alhurra, the Arab-language station that has received nearly $500 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars, say that of all their broadcasts to the Middle East, they are most proud of their broadcasts to Iraq. But a close look at both the content and personnel suggests the problems in the Baghdad bureau and the effort to broadcast programming for Iraqis are as profound as those that afflict the rest of the network.
Why doesn't The Free One do what we tell it to do?
(Los Angeles Times, 8 Jul 2008)
Briefly, al-Hurra and its U.S.-citizen-funded ilk stood (and stand) accused of misreading the local market, failing to win audiences, being stapled to an obsolete Cold War model of propaganda, not pencilling out in even the most modest financials, delivering a product that people already get in better and more accessible forms and committing the mortal journalistic sin of being boring.
Blogosphere
Teasing readers about propaganda
(Get Religion, 25 Jun 2008)
Life is like a night in a second-class hotel. It contains hints of beauty and glory with little of the reality. This is more than a paraphrase of a quote from St. Teresa of Avila. It serves as an analogy for the coverage of religion in The Washington Post’s two-part series about propaganda in the U.S. war against Islamic terrorism.
Al-Hurra under fire, again
(Abu Aardvark, 23 Jun 2008)
I'm glad to see these issues get aired, and I hope that this will spark a serious debate over how to approach public diplomacy instead of another round of partisan warfare. At the end of the day, the Post and Pro Publica focus attention on some big questions which remain unresolved: Is the real problem conceptual or implementation and management? Could something like al-Hurra have succeeded if done differently, or was it a missed opportunity? What should al-Hurra be, a pseudo-independent news outlet or a mouthpiece for US foreign policy? And should the station now be refurbished or should it be abandoned - particularly given half a billion dollars of sunk costs and the entry into the Arab TV arena of the British, Germans, Russians, and so many others?
‘Tis the Season to Bash Al-Hurra
(Talisman Gate, 23 Jun 2008)
Al-Hurra is not perfect, but it is pretty good, and in some areas, such as the Iraq-market, I tend to see it as the market leader. When Iraqi politicians want to be heard and seen, they rush to get airtime on Al-Hurra. Their second choice would be Iraq’s own Al-Iraqiya Channel. Their third choices would be one of the two dozen or so other ‘local’ Iraqi satellite channels.
When ‘The Free One’ becomes ‘The Failed One’
(The Carpetbagger Report , 23 Jun 2008)
At first blush, there’s nothing especially wrong with the notion of the U.S. government trying to improve the nation’s image in the Middle East. After the attacks of 9/11, American officials knew we had some work to do in the region. After the fiasco in Iraq, those same officials surely noticed that the nation’s reputation had been tarnished, and was even more in need of rehabilitation. It’s how the Bush administration went about making these improvements that’s the problem. State-sponsored news outlets are always problematic, but the administration’s Al-Hurra initiative is one of the more embarrassing propaganda efforts in recent memory.
A Constructive Look at Al-Hurra and Its Critics
(USC Center on Public Diplomacy Blog, 24 Jun 2008)
The following blog entry provides two critiques -- first of the oddly framed arguments in CBS's coverage of Al-Hurra, and second of the government's rejoinder. Basically, while the CBS report brings up important organizational and strategic deficiencies surrounding Al-Hurra and its 'mission' -- its criticism only highlights the fact that Al-Hurra has been conferred conflicting (and perhaps contradictory) objectives and lacks a political constituency in the government. The U.S. government's response amounts to claims that Al-Hurra's numbers are improving and that the government is essentially "doing something" to promote its perspective in the competitive Arab media market. This controversy reveals the enduring problems of contemporary U.S. international broadcasting -- its weakness in the face of domestic political opposition, haphazard implementation of conflicting foreign policy imperatives, and perhaps a strategic misrecognition of the real communication landscape.
Alhurra, ProPublica, Media Ethics and Me
(DAVIDCORN, 27 Jun 2008)
ProPublica, working with 60 Minutes, and The Washington Post have each recently produced pieces that depict Alhurra as a mismanaged and wasteful organization. (See here and here.) I'm not writing to defend the network. And if it is indeed a waste of taxpayers' money, perhaps a journalist (in his or her role as a citizen) ought not to work with the operation. I had three interactions with Alhurra that told me little about the overall operation. But the matter of journalists accepting payment for providing commentary to Alhurra is not the easy gotcha the ProPublica piece implied.
Read Comments:
Lyrucs on March 29, 2012 @ 12:17 am:
This is definitely a topic that's close to me so I'm happy that you wrote about it. I'm also happy that you did the subject some justice. Not only do you know a great deal about it Ogilvy’s Effective Writing Tips, you know how to present in a way that people will want to read more. Im so happy to know someone like you exists on the web.
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