Abu Aardvark

TAP on al-Hurra

This is the article on al-Hurra that I thought Art Levine was writing a few months ago.  But it's excquisitely well-timed now, I have to admit. 

An Eid Present for al-Hurra!

So, it's the Eid, and I know what you're asking:  what can I get the aardvark who has everything?    "Lolita Nation" by Game Theory on CD or MP3 would be nice.   A way of keeping the cat quiet and the kids asleep until after 6 AM every morning would be super-neat.   

But if those are out, how about... a Congressional investigation of al-Hurra for alleged contracting irregularities and inflated claims about market share?  You beauty! 

From the Financial Times, via a helpful reader:

Al-Hurra, the Arabic language satellite television network set up by the US administration to promote freedom and democracy in the Middle East, is to be investigated for possible irregularities, the state department confirmed on Thursday.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors, a federal agency, has asked the state department's inspector general to investigate, a spokesman for Karen Hughes, under-secretary for public diplomacy, told the Financial Times. Mrs Hughes, a board member, was aware of allegations and awaited the findings, he said.

The House of Representatives subcommittee on oversight and investigations is also looking into al-Hurra, which started broadcasting in February 2004. A hearing has been set for November 10 with Kenneth Tomlinson, BBG chairman, and Mouafac Harb, the news director of al-Hurra, called as witnesses.

Al-Hurra - which means "The Free One" in Arabic - is funded by the BBG and has a budget from Congress of $49m for 2005. Based in Virginia, just outside Washington, it was created to counter the perceived anti-American bias of the Qatar-based al-Jazeera. It broadcasts to 22 countries, claiming an audience of 21m people weekly.

Officials declined to elaborate on the precise nature of the allegations but said they involved procurement and contracting. There was also concern that viewing figures might be inflated. Media analysts said al-Hurra's programming had come to reflect the preponderance of Lebanese on the staff, rather than projecting a pan-Arab outlook.

Mr Harb rejected allegations of any wrongdoing. He told the FT he expected the inspector general to look into the whole operation, including programming. He called it a general review into whether al-Hurra was fulfilling its mission.

"There's a campaign against al-Hurra by some people in this city who don't like our dedication to freedom and democracy," he said.

Yes, Muwafic... they hate your freedoms.  Anyway, anyone getting ready for November 10 should feel free to exploit these archives to your hearts' content.   

UPDATE:  and Ken Tomlinson too!  Interestingly, the Times says that "The audit began at the request of al-Hurra, the officials said."  So... does al-Hurra hate its own dedication to freedom and democracy?  I'm so confused. 

Al-Hurra's new talk show

Hey, if Nora Boustany writes about it in the Washington Post, it isn't a secret any more, right?

Al-Hurra TV, a network the U.S. government funds in hopes of improving public diplomacy in the Arab world, has retained an erstwhile critic, Robert Satloff, a director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, to host a talk show. The title: "Inside Washington."

Two years ago, Satloff wrote an op-ed piece criticizing the U.S. government for underwriting al-Hurra. Privately owned media are much better forums, he argued.

But after funding for the network passed through Congress, he said, he was talking to an al-Hurra official and remarked that it ought to have a program focused on the complexities of Washington decision-making. "The notion that the president just snaps his fingers and things happen" is false, he said.

"When I suggested this," he recalled, "I was told: 'You do it.' " He said that now that he's unable to block al-Hurra as a publicly funded entity, he wants to make it better.

Satloff is a very sharp analyst, knows Washington very well, and has some valuable ideas about public diplomacy.  I wish him the best in putting together the best program he can put together.  I'm not 100% sure that a talk show likely to be conducted in English and hosted by a prominent resident of the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy is necessarily the best way to reach Arab audiences, but I defer to the programming geniuses at al-Hurra on such matters.  Either way, I have no doubt that the appointment will help al-Hurra reach out to its real primary constituency - Congress.   

Hey, I just thought of something!  I've also been spent the last two years "criticizing the U.S. government for underwriting al-Hurra" and arguing that "Privately owned media are much better forums."  I've also agreed grudgingly that now that the money has been wasted, they might as well try to make it better.   Oddly enough, however, nobody at al-Hurra has offered me a talk show.  Gee whiz!  That's just so weird!    In case this bizarre oversight gives anyone any ideas, let me help out in advance:  please don't ask.

Al-Arabiya dominates Iraqi market

According to a just-released Ipsos Stat survey, al-Arabiya dominates the Iraqi market for Arab satellite television news, while al-Jazeera is doing remarkably poorly:

The Dubai-based channel was considered the most popular choice for news information. According to the same survey, the news channel ranks second after state-run Al Iraqiya in terms of family and general programming. ... The study showed that 41% of the sample chose Al Arabiya as their prime source of news while 46% of respondents follow Al Iraqiya. Sharqiya news channel was ranked third with 39% while MBC1 and 2 were ranked fourth and fifth, respectively. Al Arabiya viewership was double its main regional competitor - Al Jazeera - which was ranked sixth.

Al-Arabiya beating out al-Jazeera in the Iraqi market isn't new - al-Jazeera has struggled with an official governmental ban, many Iraqis dislike al-Jazeera because they don't like its coverage or resent its allegedly pro-Saddam coverage before (and after) the war, and al-Arabiya has worked hard to cultivate an area of relative advantage.  The scale of its advantage is surprising, though, and significantly larger than in other surveys I've seen.   

Just for the record, note that al-Hurra does not appear at all (which should surprise nobody, except for those trusting souls - or CongressPeople - who actually believe Broadcasting Board of Governors press releases about al-Hurra market share and audience). 

Ending the al-Jazeera ban... and beyond

In September 2003, I published a piece in Foreign Affairs which, among other things, had one very simple policy prescription:  "open a direct dialogue with the Arab and Islamic world through its already existing and increasingly influential transnational media."  Or, to be more blunt, end the informal ban on senior officials appearing on al-Jazeera.  I've spent the last couple of years repeating and elaborating on the argument, privately and publicly.

While I was in Washington, Karen Hughes unveiled some of the key aspects of her new approach to public diplomacy:   

The New York Times said Thursday this would include more frequent appearances by Bush administration figures on the influential Al-Jazeera network, which has been a harsh critic of U.S. policies.  The Times quoted Ms. Hughes as saying U.S. officials need to convey their message through the media that people are listening to, so they clearly must be more effective in communicating on Al-Jazeera.

Here's the exact quote from Hughes:  "As a communicator, first of all, you have to communicate your message through mediums to which people listen.  So I think that we clearly need to be more effective about how we communicate on Al Jazeera."   Over the last couple of days, several officials involved in public diplomacy have told me that she seems to be serious about this.

Good.   This is a long overdue, extremely sensible policy shift.  A good start for Ms. Hughes - if only a start, with a long way to go.  Let's hope that she pushes ahead to reorient our public diplomacy efforts in the region away from the failed white elephants burning through resources over at the Broadcast Board of Governors and towards the media which really matter. 

One other thing, though.  Talking to al-Jazeera was only one of my recommendations.  I also had a series of recommendations for how the US should be talking on al-Jazeera:  less lecturing, more listening;  less spin and message control, more recognition of the reality of conflicting interests;  less lashing out at 'disinformation' and more respectful hearings for reasoned arguments coming from the Arab world. 

Another key component of her initiative suggests reason for concern: 

The rapid response teams would seek to counter misinformation about U.S. policies and actions in the same news cycle so that it is not perpetuated. Hughes plans to set up a rapid response center to monitor what is printed and broadcast by television networks such as al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya. "We're behind the curve in being able to put down rumors and myths," she said.

Rapid response teams are a good idea - I've recommended something like it myself.  But I had something different in mind.  I had suggested having a corps of dedicated Public Affairs Officers based in the region whose primary responsibility would be to appear on any Arab media which invited them - attractive, fluent Arab speakers who would be desirable guests and give an appealing picture of Americans as funny, open to dissenting points of view, willing to admit mistakes, but still powerfully advocating American beliefs and policies. 

This sounds more like a "truth squad." 

Lies and misinformation should indeed be corrected when they are broadcast, but they aren't really the core of the problem.  If the rapid response teams turn into a vehicle for hectoring, harrassing, and lecturing - insisting that Arab media accept the official Washington spin on every event -  then they will make the problem worse, not better.   It would be a real shame, and a horribly missed opportunity, if the increased engagement with the Arab media promised by Hughes turns out to simply throw fuel on the fire. 

I hope that Hughes's pragmatism will win out. She seems to be talking to a lot of the right people - members of the Djerejian commission, experienced public diplomacy officials, people at State - who (my pointy little aardvark ears tell me) are telling her the right things.   Listening to them now wouldn't only be good practice for listening to what Arabs are actually saying... it would also save a lot of grief down the road. 

Public cultural diplomacy

Martha Bayles, in an op-ed drawn from her essay which accompanied mine in the Wilson Quarterly:

Today we witness the outcome: an unwarranted dismissal of elite-oriented cultural diplomacy, combined with an unquestioned faith in the export of popular culture. These converge in the decision to devote the bulk of post-9/11 funding to Radio Sawa and the other commercial-style broadcast entities, such as al-Hurra (a U.S.-based satellite TV network aimed at Arab listeners) and Radio Farda (which is broadcast in Farsi to Iran). Because the establishment of these new channels has been accompanied by the termination of the VOA's Arabic service, critics have focused largely on their news components. But what benefit is there in Radio Sawa's heavy rotation of songs by sex kitten Britney Spears and foul-mouthed rapper Eminem?

To the charge that the Bush administration is peddling smut and profanity to Arab teens, Radio Sawa's music director, Usama Farag, has stated that all the offensive lyrics are carefully edited out. Yet there is something quaint about the U.S. government's censoring song lyrics in a world where most people have ready access to every product of the American entertainment industry, including the dregs.

American popular culture is no longer a beacon of freedom to huddled masses in closed societies. Instead, it's a glut on the market and, absent any countervailing cultural diplomacy, our de facto ambassador to the world. The solution to this problem is far from clear. Censorship is not the answer, because even if it were technologically possible to censor our cultural exports, it would not be politic. The United States must affirm the crucial importance of free speech in a world that has serious doubts about it, and the best way to do this is to show that freedom is self-correcting -- that Americans have not only liberty but also a civilization worthy of liberty.

She also does a nice job of putting the evolution of USIA in the context of the 1980s culture wars.  I'm not as down on pop culture as she is, but I agree with her view that there is a glut rather than a shortage of American pop culture in the Arab world.  Yes, there's a huge market for pop culture - otherwise, what would be the point of the Nancy-Haifa culture wars? - but there's little reason for the US government to be a player in those particular wars. It's not like Arab kids are yearning for a taste of Frank Zappa here... they're too busy channel surfing among all the different music video stations.   

More on Tomlinson and the BBG

Art Levine, in The American Prospect, comes in second behind Franklin Foer, but still lands some good blows on Ken Tomlinson's performance with the Broadcasting Board of Governors.  He focuses on the Voice of America (also see Sanford Unger's devastating piece in Foreign Affairs on the VOA; Unger made mincemeat of Tomlinson's letter of complaint by offering a dozen examples when Tomlinson demanded one).  Here's Levine:

What’s happened at the VOA -- which the longtime Karl Rove ally Tomlinson oversees as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) -- has done considerable damage to the value and credibility of international broadcasting. According to interviews with current and former VOA staffers and e-mails obtained by The American Prospect, under Tomlinson’s watch, VOA administrators have pressed the agency’s journalists to report pro–White House spin and too often directed them to downplay hard-hitting news in favor of puffery.
...

critics say he’s encouraging politicization with the approval of a board that was meant to prevent such meddling. “What was supposed to be a firewall to protect broadcasters,” says Ungar, “has become a vehicle for political interference.”
...
Tomlinson and Jackson deny conferring about specific stories or taking orders from White House officials, although there is no doubt that Jackson is following the board’s wishes. His approach to coverage of the Iraq War has been particularly controversial within the agency, where he stands accused of cutting real war coverage to push good-news gush.

Levine kind of wasted an aardvark's precious time, but what the heck... it happens.  Good to see the BBG - from VOA to al-Hurra -  finally getting the critical attention it deserves. I will point out, however, Levine's fairly transparent partisan dodge: by mainly addressing the VOA, Levine avoided the awkwardness of criticizing al-Hurra, with its Democratic backer (Norm Pattiz) and its Democratic patron (Joe Biden).    

BBC and al-Hurra

The BBC will be providing 45 hours of "news, current affairs, and historical" content to al-Hurra Iraq, the American government owned and operated Arabic language television station.   Only noted because it will be fun to see if there's any reaction from those who have ranted on about the "BBC's anti-American crusade" and the BBC's "frothing at the mouth anti-American bias".  What will they make of the American-financed station using BBC "news, current affairs, and historical" content:  will their heads spin around and explode?   Is al-Hurra also anti-American?  What will Ken Tomlinson do about this outrage? 

TNR Tomlinson and the BBG

Franklin Foer has a hard-hitting piece in the New Republic about Ken Tomlinson and the Broadcasting Board of Governors.   I know a similar piece was in the works for another magazine, but it never seemed to come out - perhaps because Norm Pattiz being a Democrat, and Joe Biden being a major advocate of al-Hurra, made it a tough nut for partisan writers.  But Foer apparently dug a bit deeper and came up with some good stuff.  Some key excerpts: 

As chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), Tomlinson has spent the last two years living a conservative fantasy--making life hell for NPR and PBS. Most notoriously, Tomlinson commissioned a study showing public broadcasting to be riddled with liberal bias..... While these antics have spurred outraged op-eds and an inspector general's investigation, another Tomlinson scandal has gone largely unnoticed. For the last three  years, Tomlinson has moonlighted as chairman of the BBG--which controls networks that are among the most important vehicles for public diplomacy. Given the rampant anti-Americanism in the world these days, that  makes this job arguably more consequential than his rule over Oscar the Grouch and Garrison Keillor. Unfortunately, he hasn't treated the BBG with any greater gravitas. He has deployed a similar set of tactics: purging the bureaucracy of political enemies, zealously rooting out perceived "liberal bias," and generally politicizing institutions that have resisted ideological intrusions for decades. One of Tomlinson's fellow broadcasting governors told me, "In every story about the CPB, you could substitute BBG."

Tomlinson arrived at the BBG in August of 2002, thanks, in no small measure, to the backing of his longtime buddy, Karl Rove.... Whereas the BBG once opened its meetings to the public, Tomlinson began restricting substantive discussions to executive sessions. Behind closed doors, his colleagues say, he set about restructuring the organization to minimize the power of individual commissioners (e.g., potentially obstreperous Democrats), insisting that he possessed the power to unilaterally hire and fire any staffer. ....  Tomlinson has also focused on deposing staff that he considers to be Democratic sympathizers.

If it were just bureaucratic politics, I wouldn't be all that concerned.  But, as a long-time observer and critic of the BBG's approach to public diplomacy (Radio Sawa and Al-Hurra TV), I am really happy to see this aspect finally getting some serious play:

With all the machinations that have consumed the BBG, it's not surprising that Tomlinson's style has rubbed off on actual broadcast content. Under his reign, longtime civil servants have found themselves replaced by Republican ideologues. There's no better example than VOA Director David Jackson, who arrived via the Pentagon public affairs office. Reporters, editors, and producers at VOA insist that Jackson has pressured them to portray the administration favorably. These instances have been catalogued by Sanford Ungar, a former VOA director, in a Foreign Affairs essay, and by Carolyn Weaver, a VOA-tv reporter, in an e-mail to Jackson that I obtained.

Their main complaint is Iraq coverage. Ungar writes: "Editors have repeatedly been asked to develop 'positive stories' emphasizing U.S. success in Iraq, rather than report car bombings and terrorist attacks." Jackson, for example, sent an e-mail urging reporters to cover restored cell phone service: "This story offers so many angles." (Like Tikrit's dirt-cheap friends and family rate.) VOA reporters also say that they have been asked to limit criticisms of the war. Management insisted on removing photos of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib from VOA's website. And, after U.S. forces raided Iraqi National Congress headquarters in the spring of 2004, Jackson chastised reporters for referring to Ahmed Chalabi as a "a favorite of the Pentagon."

Of course, VOA exists to make America's case to the world. But, in the Tomlinson era, VOA management has focused far more intently on burnishing the image of the Bush administration and the Republican Party--a task that falls outside the organization's ambit. Jackson, for instance, warned reporters not to dwell  on "Bush-bashing" at last summer's Democratic National Convention. When a reporter produced a story on the  diversity of Democratic delegates, the story was held. The reporter was told to wait until the Republican convention and write about both parties' diversity efforts then.

In the meantime, the BBG has descended into rancor. Democrats and staff call Tomlinson "paranoid" and describe his "angry outbursts." This ill will has come  at a cost. Governors from both parties say squabbling has diverted attention from the development of a coherent strategy. For instance, the BBG can't develop a plan for capitalizing on the surprisingly large Muslim audiences captured by Sawa, because it wastes so much time debating Tomlinson's personnel moves.

....

How bad is Tomlinson? His opponents told me that they couldn't wait for Karen Hughes to emerge from retirement and assume her new job as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy--a post potentially more powerful than Tomlinson's in devising strategy for the battle for hearts and minds. They hope that she will take her new mission seriously and won't abide the silly intramural fighting that now consumes the BBG--that even she will be disgusted by Tomlinson's power plays. "She's a relative pragmatist," a BBG member told me. In other words, the Democrats are banking on Bush's most fanatically loyal spinmeister to diminish Republican partisanship within the organization. Yes, it's that bad.

This is one of the many reasons that the inability of US-based observers to monitor or evaluate the content of al-Hurra is so problematic.  So let me once again propose that if al-Hurra is to be taken seriously as a major weapon in America's "war of ideas" in the Arab world, then it should in fact be taken seriously:  have its content be routinely monitored and evaluated, have all of its internal polling and survey data be publicly available, have its effectiveness be scrutinized.  In other words, have it be held accountable. 

Just try and hold the BBG accountable

The National Journal reports:

In October 2004, The Washington Post reported that a State Department inspector general's draft report that was highly critical of Radio Sawa, and was originally intended for release in August 2004, had been delayed indefinitely. A later version of the draft, dated November 2004 and recently obtained by National Journal, shows how the report was edited to mitigate or entirely remove some of its most critical assertions. Officials familiar with the IG investigation that spawned the report say there was intense political pressure to make the report more palatable. Still, the edited draft cites "a lack of uniform quality control" over reporting and hiring standards at the station and questions the station's "ability to move the needle of public opinion."

The draft was never finalized or released, and officials say it was shelved in December 2004 after an outside auditor raised questions about the report's quality. BBG board member Norman Pattiz, the radio tycoon and Democratic donor credited with getting Sawa and Al Hurra off the ground, told National Journal that the IG report was "replete with factual inaccuracies" and was canceled only after the IG realized that "releasing the report would make them look silly." 

While BBG Chairman Ken Tomlinson, a Republican, and Pattiz pushed hard against the report, insiders say it was State Department acting Inspector General Cameron Hume who decided not to release it.

But Hume did more than kill the report: In February 2005, he dismantled the Office of International Broadcasting Oversight, where the report originated, and scattered its employees among other offices. IG officials say this merely restructured the office to match those of other government inspectors general, but some familiar with the old office lament the change and say the IG "lost a valuable tool." Regardless, scrapping the International Broadcasting Oversight Office eliminated the only federal entity outside the BBG specifically charged with reviewing U.S. international broadcasting.

Al-Hurra and Radio Sawa:  the untouchables. 

If this were an ordinary government agency, one actually accountable for its performance, here's someone with a pretty good idea of how they might actually be evaluated, and move us past the frustrating arguments about audience share:

Bruce Gregory, former executive director of the State Department's bipartisan Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, suggests that resources might be better employed in finding out if Radio Sawa and Al Hurra newscasts have become the subject of debate in universities, at cafes, and on the streets of Arab countries. " 'Has the news on Sawa and Al Hurra become part of the public discourse?' is the question we should be asking," he said.

Here's another idea I've been floating around:  why not mandate that the BBG release all of its audience survey data publicly?  Not press releases, not carefully selected studies which show positive progress, but all of it:  the raw data, the good, the bad and the ugly.  This should not be interpreted as an anti-BBG suggestion:  good news would be far more credible if independent observers could see the entire range of information and make honest evaluations of it on its merits.   Remember: every single one of those audience surveys was paid for with taxpayer money.  And there's always the Freedom of Information Act...