International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy

Alhurra, U.S. international broadcasting’s 24-hour Arabic television channel, as well as its audio counterpart Radio Sawa, have come under a torrent of media scrutiny…
     ”‘Did you wonder whether the United States government should be in the business of Arab news gathering?” [Scott] Pelley asks [former Alhurra news director] Larry Register. ‘I don’t think any government should be involved in news gathering. ‘Cause you can’t make independent decisions if you have a government over you telling you what you can and can’t do,’ he says. ‘If it’s credible you run afoul with the government. If you follow the line of the government, nobody watches it in the Middle East,’ Pelley remarks. ‘It’s a no-win situation, as I painfully found out,’ Register says.” CBS’s 60 Minutes, 22 June 2008.
     ”A study due out next month by a University of Southern California team questions whether the network has achieved either objectivity or professionalism. The review was commissioned by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Alhurra. … The researchers studied the network’s coverage of the three-day Mideast summit in Annapolis, Md. and found that it strongly favored U.S. and Israeli government positions. Throughout November, they concluded, the network also strongly supported the Iraqi government and was especially favorable to pro-Iranian political figures inside Iraq.” Dafna Linzer, ProPublica, 22 June 2008.
     Former Alhurra news director Mouafac Harb “resigned in 2006. He said he left … because he sensed the Broadcasting Board of Governors wanted al-Hurra to promote U.S. foreign policy instead of just reporting the news. He said the station has since become more cautious. ‘There is a tendency to please Washington and not the audience,’ he said. ‘It looks like C-SPAN in Arabic — who cares?’ Other former al-Hurra staffers said Harb was encouraged to leave.” Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, 23 June 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. … Independent research indicates that Alhurra has the largest weekly audience of any non-Arab broadcaster in the Middle East, up from 21 million in 2006 to 26 million today.” Broadcasting Board of Governors press release, 23 June 2008.
     ”The hero in the 60 Minutes segment is the very person [Larry Register] responsible for most of the broadcasts cited as problematic. Though far from perfect, Al-Hurra no longer strives to provide airtime to terrorists from Hamas, Hezbollah or al Qaeda. Such guests are now banned. The only recent evidence cited by 60 Minutes, in fact, is from a live roundtable interview program where Palestinian political commentator Hani El-Masri, who arguably is a moderate in his society, said that Israel is a ‘racist state that …perpetrates a holocaust against 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza.’ His comment, as 60 Minutes notes, was not contradicted or challenged. But where’s the pattern? The promotional headline certainly suggests more than one example of ‘anti-Israel rhetoric.’” Joel Mowbray, Power Line, 23 June 2008.
     See Kim’s commentary. And previous post about same subject. Also this previous post about Alhurra’s audience size.

See more news about international broadcasting at www.kimandrewelliott.com.