Abu Aardvark

We're #56!

IPSOS-STAT passed on its lastest data on Arab TV audiences to one of its preferred outlets.  While I don't have great confidence in the IPSOS data from Saudi Arabia, these numbers are worth mentioning just because they are the first publicly released numbers we've got measuring Arab market share during the Israel-Lebanon war.  IPSOS (which usually tends to favor al-Arabiya, for whatever reason) confirms the anecdotal sense that al-Jazeera did very well by the war:  "During the war, Al Jazeera showed up a strong number one in most places." 

What about al-Hurra?

During the month of September [IPSOS] ranked Alhurra number 56 out of the top 100 Middle East Satellite channels viewed in Saudi Arabia.... While rated well behind news leaders Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera, Alhurra shows up far ahead of the American news channel CNN, which ranks 83rd. In Saudi Arabia, Alhurra was also ranked ahead of other Middle East channels including those of Syria, Oman, Qatar, and Jordan in September. It also ran ahead of the U.S. Discovery Channel's Animal Planet, which ranked 79th.

Al-Hurra beat Animal Planet!     I'm searching for the right punch-line here...

Sad thing is, by American public diplomacy standards, beating Animal Planet is actually something of a coup...

GAO v BBG

Regular readers will know that I've been a long-time critic of the American Arabic language satellite TV station al-Hurra.   Beyond my skepticism about its ability to compete in the intensively competitive Arab TV market, doubts about how it has been conceptualized, its relative lack of transparency about its programming, and amazement about its quality levels, I have been particularly exercised by its claims about audience size.  Again and again, the BBG has released excited claims about vast market share which don't seem to be replicated by any independent surveys.  This "boosterist" approach to reporting audience survey research badly undermined the BBG's credibility in my eyes - I just couldn't take any of it seriously, even if some of it might have been useful.   

Well, it wasn't just me.   The GAO has just released a tough report on al-Hurra TV and Radio Sawa. The punchline:

"we were unable to determine the accuracy of MBN's reported audience size and program credibility estimates due to weaknesses in MBN's methodology and documentation."

And again:

"The BBG did not take certain steps that could have explained and increased the reliability of its estimates, such as by fully documenting its research and estimation methods, measuring the level of uncertainty surrounding its estimates, disclosing significant limitations, and consistently implementing policies and procedures for verifying data... it has primarily used a methodology that cannot be reliably projected to the broader population... the BBG has not taken steps to explain and increase the reliability of MBN's performance information, such as by maintaining more detailed documentation to support its estimates, reporting significant data limitations, limiting the scope of its projections to areas actually covered by its surveys, and developing BBG policies and procedures for verifying performance data."   

The GAO authors note that "in 12 out of 14 cases, the BBG used nonprobability surveys, which cannot be reliably projected to the broader population, to develop its regional estimates for audience size and credibility."  The survey of Morocco, for instance, covered only 35% of the general population;  in Egypt, the response rate was only 19%; and Jordan's only surveyed some governorates. In each case, according to the GAO results were reported as reflecting national samples despite such data limitations.   

Documentation was also lacking, making it difficult for independent analysts to ascertain the credibility of the surveys:  "the BBG and its research contractors were unable to provide us with certain documentation commonly required by international broadcasting research standards.  CIBAR requires that in all measurement research the sampling methods used and other technical aspects of the survey be open to independent scrutiny... For two cases, the BBG was unable to provide us with any survey documentation, and for all but one case the BBG and its contractors were unable to provide us all the detailed information we requested."  The data shortcomings were so severe that "the BBG has not been able to measure sampling errors... the BBG only has a rough idea of what the margins of error might be for its surveys, further limiting confidence in the reliability of its current performance information."  The GAO does not pursue the question of what the shoddy documentation might or might not conceal. 

The bottom line:  the GAO considers the BBG's audience research to be deeply problematic, literally unusable for determining whether al-Hurra has met performance targets.  The BBG offers a rebuttal to the GAO report, of course, defending the professionalism and quality of its audience research, comparing it favorably to other surveys (like Pew and Zogby), and attributing the acknowledged shortcomings to the difficulties of working in the field in the Middle East.  Some of its complaints seem reasonable, others reek of desperation (how can they claim that nobody expected to have to produce certain documentation when such documentation is the industry standard?).  My only disappointment here is that the GAO did not push the question of the BBG's reporting of the audience data. 

The shortcomings in audience research are compounded by the fact that the stations have not been subjected to mandated program reviews:   "While the BBG calls for its broadcasters to undergo an annual program review, Radio Sawa has only held one such review, and Alhurra has not completed one to date. Furthermore, unlike reviews of other broadcasting services and contrary to BBG guidance, the Radio Sawa program review was less comprehensive in that it relied upon several audience panels but did not include input from in-house analysts or external expert listeners. The lack of annual, comprehensive program reviews hampers BBG's ability to assure its audience, Congress, and the BBG that its services are complying with its journalistic standards and mission."   

This gets to another of my longstanding complaints - the lack of transparency about the station's content.  If I want to know who appeared on al-Jazeera to discuss Lebanon, or how many times Darfur was mentioned on al-Arabiya, I can use the generally functional search engines on their content-rich websites (which offer full transcripts of their talk shows and programs).   I don't have access to anything like that kind of information about al-Hurra, and neither does Congress or any of the oversight boards.  The BBG does send out a roundup of guests and topics to an email list, but it isn't systematic or publicly available (I used to get them, but haven't received one since my scathing post about al-Hurra's coverage of the Israel-Lebanon war, for whatever reason.)  If they don't even have internal program review boards offering oversight, then there isn't really any at all.

Look, I'm glad that the GAO has weighed in on my side of this debate.  It's refreshing. But I don't find it a particularly useful or interesting debate.  Al-Hurra's struggles are obvious and well-known, and far too much time has been wasted on pointless bureaucratic arguments.  I've said before that there's no reason at this point to kill al-Hurra - the sunk costs are enormous, and now that we've paid for this station we might as well get something out of it.   My hope is that an authoritative external voice like the GAO can wake up the right people and start a badly needed revamping process.  With Ken Tomlinson potentially on the way out, that may actually finally be possible. 

Lieven and Chambers: shut down al-Hurra

The limits of propaganda.  Excellent op-ed by Anatol Lieven and David Chambers about the failures of al-Hurra:

Clearly there is an urgent need for media that will bridge this gap. But to be effective, they have to be credible with Muslims — which Al Hurra is not.... President Bush has requested a 13% spending increase for Al Hurra. Yet, according to a recent Zogby poll, only 1% of Arab viewers watch it as their first choice. Al Hurra claims 21.3 million viewers, but it will not publish the Nielsen survey that supposedly supports this figure. The station is rightly regarded by most Arabs as a mouthpiece for the Bush administration.
...
This is because Al Hurra's basic conception is wrong.... in the Cold War, the U.S. was facing a hostile, totalitarian empire and a monolithic media rigidly controlled by the Soviet Communist Party. The situation in the Arab world is utterly different. Arabs may be oppressed by their own governments, but with the exception of the Palestinians and some Iraqis, they are not seeking liberation from alien domination. And their media are now genuinely diverse. There are more than 200 competing satellite television channels. The ones with serious news services do show deference to their government sponsors — but then, these Arab governments themselves have very different cultures, attitudes and policies.

As a consequence, Arab viewers now have access to a variety of views on issues, including democracy, terrorism, religion, the role of women, economic reform and relations with Iran. The most well-known Arabic stations, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, have some genuine independence.

Because these stations opposed and strongly criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and have given prominence to negative stories about U.S. policies, they and the Arab media in general have been treated as enemies by the Bush administration, the U.S. media and many U.S. politicians.

If, however, these stations' attitudes toward our original enemies in the "war on terror" — the perpetrators of 9/11 — are examined, the situation looks very different. The executives and journalists of these stations know what the Taliban and Al Qaeda did in Afghanistan — and what an Al Qaeda regime would do to them personally. Most want democratic progress for their countries.

These stations have broadcast Al Qaeda statements as news, but they also have broadcast ferocious criticism of Al Qaeda's actions and ideology. And they have suffered for this. Following criticisms of Al Arabiya by Islamist insurgents, its Baghdad office was destroyed in a suicide bombing, killing five of its staff.

The propaganda techniques of the Cold War made sense once. But such state propaganda is not the real American way. Rather, our approach should be based on Oliver Wendell Holmes' belief that "the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market." The Arab media provide such a market. Let's compete in it with the high-quality, independent media that the U.S. produces and Arabs respect. Al Hurra should be closed down at once.

It sounds like I wrote it, but I didn't.  On the final policy proposalI haven't gone so far as to call for al-Hurra to be closed down.  With the sunk costs already sunk, I'd rather see it reconceptualized and salvaged rather than just shut down.  Satellite TV is a crucial battlefield, and the US should have some kind of presence.... just not, I think, this one.

Al-Hurra has a website

At long last, al-Hurra has a website!  After far too long with just a placeholder site, the American Arabic TV station finally has had a facelift.  I don't know when it launched in this form - I never bothered to check it since it had no content -  but here it is.  Since this is something I have been urging them to do for over a year, I'm of course happy to see it.  How is it? 

Well, at this point, most of its content appears to be advertising rather than actual content.  There's a broadcast schedule, and I found a few promo clips for upcoming shows, but no actual programs that I could watch.  I ran a search on الديموقراطية  democracy but got no hits from the site's contents.   For the site to really be useful, it's going to need some content:  transcripts of programs, video clips of programs, that sort of thing.  Perhaps that's forthcoming, or else it's there and I just couldn't find it. 

The main news items on the front page are Condi Rice expressing her understanding for Muslim anger over the insulting cartoons and blaming Iran and Syria for incitement;  Donald Rumsfeld touring North Africa;  Ehud Olmert repeating his concerns about Hamas leaders visiting Moscow;  ongoing negotiations over Darfur;  and arrests made in a bomb plot in Kenya. 

I have to say that the three lead stories really do seem designed to confirm the worst assumptions about how al-Hurra would cover news (are two of the top three news stories in the world of concern to Arabs really a Rumsfeld visit to Algeria and the Israeli Prime Minister's thoughts on Hamas?), but maybe I just caught the site on a bad day. 

Anyway, just thought it worth passing on that al-Hurra has upgraded its online presence.  It's a start, if only a start.

Al-Hurra, al-Jazeera and the Egyptian regime's control

Egyptian political analyst Hala Mustafa levels a rather startling charge in today's Washington Post (thanks, prak):

The media are subjected to the same control. Even private, independent papers are held hostage to the security services, which have the power to license and shut down any newspaper and which exercise similar control over the granting of licenses to journalists. The same goes for TV stations -- including al-Hurra, the U.S.-sponsored satellite channel, which is supposed to be providing uncensored news from an American point of view.

From the beginning, al-Hurra's operation in Egypt was subject to the covert control of the security services, a fact that is not always apparent to those who oversee the station from Washington. The services have close ties to some of the station's directors and handpick many correspondents. They even have final say over which guests appear on programs. As a result, anyone who has paid careful attention to the tone and opinions of the regular programming will notice that liberal, progressive, open-minded views are presented almost apologetically. While al-Hurra is supposed to be a vibrant, fresh forum for freedom, it has failed to provide a real space for balanced views, and so it has been incapable of competing with the "Islamic" al-Jazeera and "pan-Arabist" al-Arabiya channels.

Al-Hurra being under the close control of the Egyptian security services is a pretty tough charge, for which Mustafa gives only limited evidence - understandable given the constraints of an op-ed, but frustrating.  The word had been, actually, that al-Hurra's Egypt coverage was better than in other places because they hired a pretty good local bureau chief - perhaps that was wrong.   Minor quibble - calling al-Jazeera "Islamist" and al-Arabiya "Arabist" doesn't make much sense - editorially inserted, perhaps?

Compare Mustafa's account of al-Hurra to this al-Ahram Weekly piece on al-Jazeera's role in Egyptian political events this year: 

Judging from the channel's coverage of events in Egypt throughout 2005, it's easy to see just how much of a "nuisance" Al-Jazeera can be. On 7 September, the same day the president won Egypt's first multi-candidate election, Al-Jazeera's Cairo bureau hosted veteran political commentator Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, well known for his anti-Mubarak stances. Banned by the government from appearing on state-run TV or private Cairo-based channels, Heikal reiterated his anti-Mubarak stance and cast doubts on the president's highly publicised pledges for democratic reform.

 

As many Egyptians tuned in to watch the Heikal interview, state-run TV channels stubbornly insisted that the vote was a "historic moment". No mention was made of the anti-Mubarak demonstrations staged by Kifaya in Cairo to protest the polls, nor was there any reference to calls by the opposition to boycott what they slammed as a well-staged process to keep Mubarak in power.

A similar disparity in media coverage was apparent during the three- round parliamentary elections that kicked off on 9 November. While Al-Jazeera and Egyptian TV channels deployed a number of correspondents around the country, the state-run channels made no mention of the violence that marred the electoral process in various constituencies. Al-Jazeera -- and other independent media -- broadcast footage showing voters with faces covered with blood, and thugs waving machetes while policemen looked on. Al-Jazeera carried a press conference during which judges declared there had been rampant rigging at the polls, and police interference that prevented many from casting their votes.

The coverage stifled official attempts by the state-run stations to deny -- or disregard -- the electoral violations. It also triggered a wave of world condemnations by human rights groups and both the US and the EU. In the end, Mubarak himself admitted, during a speech to the newly elected parliament last week, that the elections had witnessed what he referred to as "negative aspects" that he pledged to address.

"Al-Jazeera has initiated a transformation in Egyptian society. We would not have known about these violations if it wasn't for Al-Jazeera," remarked Salama Ahmed Salama, a prominent Al-Ahram columnist. Cementing its influence, Al-Jazeera has gained popularity in poor and remote areas throughout Egypt, thanks to cheap cable and satellite TV links. "Why should I continue watching the Egyptian channels, which keep telling me everything is fine in elections, for example, despite the fact that 13 people were killed in the process?" asked Khaled Bahaa, a translator at a private bank. Bahaa declared Al-Jazeera his favourite channel of 2005.
...
Responding to the rising wave of activism in Egypt, Al-Jazeera Live, a C-SPAN-like public affairs channel that is one of the network's spin-offs, has run key opposition incidents on air. For the first time perhaps Egyptians watched in amazement the live broadcast of downtown demonstrations against the government. Aida Seif Al-Dawla, a prominent human rights activist, confirmed that Al-Jazeera was one way for opposition figures to find a link to people on the street.

Similar to what I've been writing all year, but nicely presented and worth repeating.  The piece also has some nice detail on changes in the Egyptian state media apparatus which is well worth checking out.

How Hi was that, exactly?

Yesterday, I mentioned the passing of Hi! Magazine.  I wasn't planning to say any more about it, but then Eccentric Star quotes this from a State Department press briefing:

 

QUESTION:  Just one last thing from me.  Do you have any figures on the website traffic at all

MR. MCCORMACK:  Well, the -- what I've been told is that there are 3 million hits.  Now --

QUESTION:  Per day or --

MR. MCCORMACK:  Yeah, it's per day*.

QUESTION:  Three million hits per day?

MR. MCCORMACK:  Per day.  Adam?

MR. ERELI:  Yep.

MR. MCCORMACK:  Yep, 3 million per day.  Now, here's one thing -- we will endeavor to find out the answer to this question for you, I don't have it yet -- are those unique viewers or are those page views.  So at this point, I don't know the answer to that and we're going to find out the answer for you....

3 million hits a day?  Are you kidding me?  Let's say that Al-Jazeera gets about 1 million hits a day (Alexa doesn't give traffic numbers for al-Jazeera, unfortunately, but I've heard that number thrown around).  Al-Arabiya, judging by the Alexa comparison I did last week, gets about a third of al-Jazeera's web traffic.  Are they seriously trying to claim that Hi - a puffy little US government produced cultural monthly magazine - gets ten times the daily traffic of al-Arabiya, and three times that of al-Jazeera? Not according to Alexa, which has this to say about Hi vs al-Jazeera:

Alexa gives Hi! about 60,000 viewers a day - which is, frankly, a lot higher than I would have expected, but not quite 3 million a day... know what I'm saying?   Maybe this helps to explain the BBG's claims about al-Hurra, too - maybe they just multiply their real findings by a factor of fifty and call it a day? It would explain a lot...

At any rate, I'm sure that McCormack and Ereli just mis-spoke, or didn't know what they were talking about, and will be issuing a correction any moment now.

Payola and public diplomacy

I've argued that the greatest victims of the Pentagon's amateurish propaganda payola scheme have been those voices in the Arab media that actually want to advance pro-American arguments, who now face an even greater level of suspicion and skepticism.   Turns out someone else agrees with me, and when you hear who it is you'll realize that this may be one of the only times you ever hear that phrase:  Ken Tomlinson, of  Broadcasting Board of Governors and Corporation for Public Broadcasting fame (thanks, AH). 

According to Broadcasting and Cable (subscription only), Tomlinson was deeply concerned:

Telling B&C he agreed with the criticism that such payments undercut U.S. efforts to help Iraq build a free press, he also said that, "as a news professional, can you imagine anything lower than a newsperson who takes bribes? Talk about building a free and honest press."

Tomlinson said that debates "involving people who also don't agree with us on freedom and rights are vital to what we are doing at Alhurra....

When Alhurra was launched, Tomlinson said, "Our competitive edge in the Middle East is our very dedication to truth, and free and open debate. And we will stand out like a beacon of light in a media market dominated by sensationalism and distortion."

Leaving aside all disagreements about al-Hurra itself, or Tomlinson's sincerity or accuracy in his claims about it, I'm glad to see Tomlinson taking this position. 

I think that the payola only affects al-Hurra indirectly.  Since al-Hurra is formally and openly an American government broadcasting outlet, it obviously isn't directly tarred by a scandal involving secret payments and placing of ghost-written stories in the Iraqi and Arab media.  If al-Hurra directly broadcast scripts written in the Pentagon, so what?   Firewall or no firewall, it's pretty much what viewers expect. 

But in the bigger picture it does affect al-Hurra, and all American public diplomacy, because it goes so directly to the question of the sincerity of American commitment to free and open media, and American credibility in its advocacy of democracy.  The problem is not that the United States is trying to persuade foreign audiences of American views - if that were illegitimate, then you'd have to kiss the entire public diplomacy enterprise goodbye.   It's the subterfuge, which is like a cancer at the heart of the public diplomacy endeavor... once it is inevitably exposed, it metastasizes and consumes even the healthy cells.

I've seen a number of articles over the last few days coming forth to defend the program, comparing it to early Cold War programs or justifying it as a necessary part of a total war against al-Qaeda.  Some of those pieces are thoughtful and well-argued.  But I think they are wrong.   Compared to the early Cold War, today it is almost impossible to keep something like this a secret.  The time-frame for exposure is incredibly compressed, and once exposed the information circulates back to the targetted region virtually immediately.    In other words, it isn't just a normative claim for the superiority of transparency and media freedom - it's based on the new strategic reality created by today's information environment.  Any policy which does not take into account the inevitability of early public exposure is by definition a flawed policy.  That applies to extraordinary renditions, torture, domestic spying, and Iraqi payola schemes alike.  This should be a key concept for all policy making today, and a key way in which public diplomacy should be integrated into the policy process. 

I think that building a free, open, critical media in the Middle East really is one of the most vital steps towards positive change in the region:  meaningful democracy is inconceivable without it, as is virtually every other aspect of economic, cultural or political reform.    Undermining that to score a few cheap points in a propaganda war is incredibly short-sighted, self-defeating behavior. 

The al-Hurra audience debate

Alvin Snyder on the debate over al-Hurra's audience:

Recently, Worldcasting cited that Al Hurra had a 14 percent viewership in Iraq, according to one independent survey. However, a survey released by the network showed 44 percent viewership in the country. Both surveys had about the same number of respondents in their samples for national representation of actual viewing, both did face-to-face interviews throughout Iraq, which is considered more reliable than telephone polling. Each defended to Worldcasting its sample model - the locations of respondents within Iraq - as the most representative of the entire country.

Why the differing results? The survey showing 44 percent recorded the percentage of the adult population in the Iraq sample that said that they viewed Al Hurra in the past week, while the lower figure, 14 percent, represented viewers who watched the channel the day before. Previous day numbers are "the currency of the market, most of the agencies, media and advertisers are relying on such data", according to a spokesperson for IPSOS-STAT, a leading independent marketing company in the Middle East. I also know from my personal experience at CBS in New York, that the overnight ratings delivered to my desk first thing each morning were grabbed before coffee.

A representative from the US government's International Broadcasting Bureau spoke to Worldcasting and granted that "weekly audiences are normally greater than daily audiences for all channels, since more people watch any given channel at least once over the course of a week than watch on any given day".

The spokesperson defended the network's research by saying that "Weekly viewing and/or listening is the standard audience measure used for all" - the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and others - and that it is also the standard measure by other international broadcasters including "the BBC, Radio France International, Deutsche Welle, Radio Canada ... We use the weekly measure to maintain consistency."

I'm not sure that weekly vs daily exhausts the possible explanations to be explored, but it's a good start. 

The al-Hurra hearing

I was curious whether the much-anticipated oversight hearings on al-Hurra would actually be a serious investigation of the various complaints about the station, or a whitewash.  The answer to that came pretty much in the first couple of minutes.   Not serious.

First, the witness list:  no critic of al-Hurra was invited to present evidence, argument, or a dissenting view.   The two external witnesses were Andrew Kohut, who presented a general overview of polling findings on anti-Americanism and punted when asked a direct question about the validity of BBG audience surveys, and Jim Phillips of the Heritage Foundation, who offered some interesting ideas about the purpose of al-Hurra which the committee declined to discuss. 

Second, after a somewhat promising opening statement by Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) - "We need al-Hurra, but we need an al-Hurra that is respectful, well-run, and a positive force in a very volatile region.... while realizing the challenges America faces, and not expecting instant results, we do expect a reasonable level of efficiency to what we are funding" - two Democrat members of the subcommittee made clear their lack of interest.  First, William Delahunt (D-MA) rambled off topic to talk about Iraq.  Then Howard Berman (D-CA) explained his conception of the hearing's purpose:  "Today's hearing is important because it gives Mr. Harb and Chairman Tomlinson an opportunity to answer their critics and hopefully clear the air."   Berman then parroted BBG talking points, defended al-Hurra, and made it clear that he was there as a defender, not as a prosecutor. 

All in all, a disappointment - especially if it serves as an excuse to avoid any further oversight.  The only positive to come out of it was this exchange, on the record:

Rep.  Rohrabacher:  Oine of the major areas that people have concern is... the credibility of the statistics in terms of the listening audience.  We have invested a great deal of money. There are some people who believe that perhaps the listening audience is not as good as suggested.  I take it that you are open to people who would scrutinize that listening audience.  So if the State Department, for example, office of research would try to look into that issue, you would be open to that?

Mr. Tomlinson:  Absolutely.

I hope that someone takes Mr. Tomlinson up on this agreement, on the record, to open up the BBG audience research files - not just the ones released to the public, but the whole array of survey results (all paid for with taxpayer money).    That would be appropriate, since the BBG evidently has no objections and won't mind, why not follow up, someone? 

Loose ends

After last night's horrible terrorist attack in Amman, this seems a little beside the point, but just to let you know that my article on Jordan's National Agenda is finally out in the Arab Reform Bulletin.

... and part two of Art Levine's fantastic expose on al-Hurra is now online at The American Prospect.