International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy

President Bush nominates Clifford D. May “to be a Member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors for a term expiring August 13, 2009, [replacing] Mark McKinnon.” And withdraws its nomination of Mark McKinnon (see previous post) “for a term expiring August 13, 2009, vice Fayza Veronique Boulad Rodman, which was sent to the Senate on January 9, 2007.” White House, 10 July 2008. “President George W. Bush has nominated Clifford D. May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, to serve on the Broadcasting Board of Governors for the remainder of a three-year term expiring August 13, 2009. ‘In this very challenging period of history, it is vital that the United States communicate with audiences abroad clearly and creatively,’ said May. ‘I will be honored and privileged if I can assist with this mission.’” FDD press release, 11 July 2008. See also May’s “Notes and Comments” at the FDD website. “If [the BBG's] mission was not originally intended to be a purveyor of propaganda, the Bush administration has seen to it that that is what it has become. Now President Bush has made his latest attempt to further mire the agency in disgrace by nominating Clifford May to the Board. May is a former Republican National Committee communications director and the President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, whose list of directors and advisors reads like a who’s who of neocon warmongers. He is an advocate of torture abroad, the suspension of civil liberties at home, and always the supremacy of America by virtue of its military might.” Daily Kos, 12 July 2008.
     May is one of the people recommended for BBG membership by Senator Tom Coburn in his 4 April 2008 letter to National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. See previous post. May has experience as a journalist, but his recent work has been more in the line of polemics. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but the BBG’s work is more in the line of journalism. If confirmed, May can try to compel U.S. international broadcasting to 1) report the news, or 2) send a message. It all depends on whether he wants U.S. international broadcasting 1) to have an audience, or 2) not.

More news about international broadcasting at kimandrewelliott.com.

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.

www.kimandrewelliott.com

…discussing international broadcasting and public diplomacy.

You wouldn’t think so from this op-ed that begins “Radio Free Europe? Does that still exist?.”

Anne Applebaum praises Radio Free Europe [sic - never using its real name: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Inc.], while completely ignoring the Voice of America, that does much of the same work as RFE.

Which begs the question: why does the United States have two (and more) international broadcasting entities with overlapping outputs? Warning: don’t fall for the line that the “surrogate” Radio Free stations provide news about the listeners’ country, while VOA broadcasts only information about the United States. If that were true, listeners would have to tune to two U.S. stations to get all the news. Listeners won’t put up with such nonsense.

For more about the Applebaum piece, see my post at kimandrewelliott.com.