[Senate Hearing 108-607]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 108-607
THE BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS: FINDING THE RIGHT MEDIA FOR THE
MESSAGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS
AND TERRORISM
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 29, 2004
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
senate
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana, Chairman
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio BARBARA BOXER, California
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee BILL NELSON, Florida
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire Virginia
JON S. CORZINE, New Jersey
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Staff Director
Antony J. Blinken, Democratic Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS
AND TERRORISM
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire, Chairman
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming BILL NELSON, Florida
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas BARBARA BOXER, California
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Ford, Mr. Jess T., Director, International Affairs and Trade,
U.S. General Accounting Office, Washington, DC................. 57
Prepared statement........................................... 59
Ghareeb, Dr. Edmund, Adjunct Professor of Middle East History and
Politics, School of International Service, American University,
Washington, DC,................................................ 68
Prepared statement........................................... 71
Harb, Mr. Mouafac, News Director, Alhurra, Middle East Television
Network, Broadcasting Board of Governors, Washington, DC....... 30
Prepared statement........................................... 32
Nelson, Hon. Bill, U.S. Senator from Florida, opening statement.. 24
Pattiz, Hon. Norman J., Governor, Broadcasting Board of
Governors, Washington, DC...................................... 24
Prepared statement........................................... 29
Rugh, Hon. William A., Associate, Institute for the Study of
Diplomacy, Georgetown University, Washington, DC............... 46
Prepared statement........................................... 49
Sununu, Hon. John E., U.S. Senator from New Hampshire, opening
statement...................................................... 1
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Telhami, Professor Shibley, Anwar Sadat Professor of Peace,
University of Maryland, College Park, MD....................... 52
Prepared statement........................................... 55
Tomlinson, Hon. Kenneth Y., Chairman, Broadcasting Board of
Governors, Washington, DC...................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Alhurra and Radio Sawa Progress Report....................... 9
Letter to Senator Sununu, dated June 3, 2004, from Kenneth
Tomlinson, transmitting additional information for the
record..................................................... 35
(iii)
THE BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS: FINDING THE RIGHT MEDIA FOR THE
MESSAGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
----------
THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2004
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on International Operations
and Terrorism,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-419, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. John E. Sununu (chairman of the
subcommittee), presiding.
Present: Senators Sununu, Biden, and Bill Nelson.
opening statement of senator john e. sununu
Senator Sununu. Good afternoon and welcome to today's
hearing of the Subcommittee on International Operations and
Terrorism.
Today we will examine the Broadcasting Board of Governors
[BBG] and evaluate whether we have found the right media mix
and media message in the Middle East, a region whose importance
to our country we all know well.
We will have two panels of distinguished witnesses. Panel
one includes Mr. Tomlinson, Chairman of the Broadcasting Board
of Governors; Mr. Pattiz, Governor of the Broadcasting Board
and Director of the Middle East Service; and Mr. Harb, News
Director of Alhurra, the Middle East Television Network. Panel
two includes Mr. Ford, Director of the International Affairs
and Trade at the General Accounting Office; Dr. Telhami, the
Anwar Sadat Professor of Peace at the University of Maryland;
and former Ambassador Rugh of the Institute for the Study of
Diplomacy at Georgetown University. We also have Dr. Ghareeb,
Adjunct Professor of Mideast History and Politics at American
University.
I want to thank all the panelists for being here today to
talk about the new Government-funded Alhurra TV network, Radio
Sawa, and all of the challenges of matching the media to the
audience in the Middle East.
To win the war on terrorism, we need to not only defeat
terrorists in the field, we need to defeat their ideas, their
anti-democratic, anti-freedom, and the anti-American message
that they espouse around the world, and most particularly in
the Middle East. Today we will examine a key tool in the war on
terrorist attempts to spread hatred and intolerance, the
Broadcasting Board of Governors and the Middle Eastern
services, Alhurra satellite TV and Radio Sawa in particular.
A free, open, and fair media is vital to a free nation and
a lasting democratic process. The dissemination of facts and
open discussion of ideas are essential to the functioning of
free institutions. The Broadcasting Board of Governors plays a
vital role in the promotion of our foreign policy because it
promotes and sustains freedom and democracy by broadcasting
accurate and objective news and information about the United
States and the world to audiences overseas.
The BBG supervises all U.S. Government-funded, non-military
international broadcasting, in 54 languages to more than 100
markets worldwide. Its services include Voice of America, Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and the Office of
Cuba Broadcasting as well. In 2002, the BBG began broadcasting
Radio Sawa to the Middle East, and in 2004, just 2 months ago,
the BBG started its Alhurra satellite television broadcasts.
The board's total 2004 budget for all activities is $590
million and for 2005 the request is just shy of $570 million.
The BBG transmits news, information, and accurate reports
of U.S. Government policy, as well as thoughtful criticism,
giving citizens of countries throughout the region the ability
to judge for themselves, which is obviously an essential
foundation for freedom and free thinking.
Last week here in the Foreign Relations committee, we held
a series of hearings on the June 30 transition date in Iraq
that were a fine example of the democratic process at work.
Administration witnesses and non-governmental experts testified
and Senators from both sides grappled with the tough issues we
and the Iraqi people face during very challenging times.
BBG seeks to set a standard of solid journalism in a region
where a history of government-controlled media has left the
public cynical and journalists too often seem to equate
strident criticism of the United States with independent
reporting.
The BBG describes ``marrying the mission to the market'' as
the fundamental strategy of U.S. international broadcasting
today. But they must determine how to best reach large
audiences in very complex, competitive media environments with
news, as well as perspectives on American culture and
information on official U.S. Government positions and policies.
This task is further complicated by what is becoming an
increasingly varied Middle Eastern broadcasting scene. While
government-owned media still dominate national land-based TV
and radio, satellite technology has created new stations that
are competing vigorously for different segments of the market.
We will ask our panelists a number of questions. In our
first panel, we will examine Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa as
examples of innovation at the BBG. What media are most
influential in the Middle East now? Is it TV? Is it radio? Is
it newspapers or is it the Internet? How does the BBG identify
its audience? How is the audience segmented? How does the BBG
select the media and the programming to reach different
audiences? And of course, how do we measure success?
On the second panel, we will see an overview of the GAO's
recent work evaluating the performance of the BBG. Our
panelists are uniquely qualified to further our understanding
of the political environment and the media marketplace in which
Alhurra and Radio Sawa operate. All three panelists on our
second panel are distinguished authors with great personal
experience in the region.
We want to better understand what journalists in the region
see as their role and their responsibilities, ask what
attitudes are among different countries and different people in
the Middle East toward the United States. What do people think
of these new broadcasting groups, Alhurra and Radio Sawa? And
how can the United States most effectively promote the
development of free, fair, and open media throughout the
region?
As our members of the subcommittee appear, I will interrupt
the proceedings to give them an opportunity to at least offer
opening remarks and submit remarks for the record. But I do
want to move along very quickly today, and as such, I will turn
immediately to our panelists and ask you to summarize any
written testimony that you have. Rest assured, we do have a
fair number of questions. Again, thank you all for
participating and we will begin with Mr. Kenneth Tomlinson.
[The prepared statement of Senator Sununu follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator John E. Sununu
Good afternoon and welcome to today's hearing of the Subcommittee
on International Operations and Terrorism of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee. Today we will examine the Broadcasting Board of
Governors and evaluate whether we have found the right media for the
message in the Middle East, a region whose importance to our country we
all know well.
We will have two panels of distinguished witnesses. Panel one
includes Mr. Tomlinson, Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of
Governors; Mr. Pattiz, Governor of the Broadcasting Board and Director
of the Middle East Service; and Mr. Harb, News Director of Alhurra, the
Middle East Television Network (METN). Panel two includes Mr. Ford,
Director, International Affairs and Trade of the General Accounting
Office; Dr. Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor of Peace at the University
of Maryland; former Ambassador Rugh of the Institute for the Study of
Diplomacy, Georgetown University; and Dr. Ghareeb, Adjunct Professor of
Middle East History and Politics, School of International Service,
American University. Thank you for coming today to discuss the new U.S.
Government-funded Alhurra, Radio Sawa, and the critical challenge of
matching the media to the audience in the Middle East.
To win the war on terrorism we must not only defeat the terrorists
in the field; we must also defeat their ideas, and the anti-democratic,
anti-freedom, and anti-American message they espouse around the world--
and most particularly in the Middle East. Today we will examine a key
tool in our war on the terrorists' attempts to spread hate and
intolerance: the Broadcasting Board of Governors and its Middle Eastern
services--Alhurra satellite TV and Radio Sawa.
A free, open and fair media is vital to a free nation and a lasting
democratic process. Dissemination of the facts and open discussion of
ideas are essential to the functioning of free institutions. The BBG
plays a vital role in the promotion of our foreign policy because it
promotes and sustains ``freedom and democracy by broadcasting accurate
and objective news and information about the United States and the
world to audiences overseas.''
The BBG supervises all U.S. Government-funded non-military
international broadcasting--in 54 languages to more than 100 markets
worldwide. Its services include: Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/
Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting
(Radio and TV Marti). In 2002, the BBG also began broadcasting Radio
Sawa to the Middle East, and in 2004, the BBG started its Alhurra
satellite television broadcasts.
The Board's total FY 2004 budget for all its activities is $592
million, and the FY 2005 request is $569.3 million. The BBG has
requested $42.7 million for FY 2005 for METN. The Congressional Budget
Office and the BBG estimate METN will cost between $37 and $42 million
annually from 2004-2008.
The BBG transmits news, information, and accurate reports of U.S.
Government policy, as well as thoughtful criticism, giving citizens of
countries throughout the region the ability to judge for themselves, an
essential foundation of freedom. Last week, here in the Foreign
Relations Committee we held a series of hearings on the June 30
transition date in Iraq that were a terrific example of the democratic
process at work. Administration witnesses and nongovernment experts of
distinction testified, and Senators from both sides of the aisle
grappled with the tough issues we and the Iraqi people face in a
dynamic discussion. BBG seeks to set a standard of solid journalism in
a region where a history of government controlled media has left the
public cynical and journalists too often seem to equate strident
criticism of the United States with ``independent'' reporting.
The BBG describes ``marrying the mission to the market'' as ``the
fundamental strategy of U.S. international broadcasting today.'' The
BBG must determine how it can best reach large audiences in complex,
competitive media environments with news as well as ``perspectives on
American culture and information on official U.S. Government positions
and policies.'' The task is complicated by what is becoming an
increasingly varied Middle Eastern broadcasting scene. While
government-owned media still dominate national land-based TV and radio,
satellite technology has created new stations that are competing
vigorously.
We will ask a number of questions. In our first panel discussion
with Mr. Tomlinson, Mr. Pattiz and Mr. Harb, we will examine Alhurra TV
and Radio Sawa as examples of innovation at the BBG. What media are
most influential in the Middle East now: TV, radio, newspapers, the
Internet? How does the BBG identify its audience? How is the audience
segmented? How does BBG select the media and programming to reach the
various audiences? How does BBG measure success? Might BBG's success in
certain markets slow the growth of free, fair, open and privately owned
local stations?
On the second panel, Mr. Ford will give us an overview of GAO's
recent work on the BBG. Dr. Telhami, Ambassador Rugh and Dr. Ghareeb
are uniquely qualified to further our understanding of the political
environment and media marketplace in which Alhurra and Radio Sawa
operate. All three are distinguished authors with long experience in
the region. What are the political as well as commercial dynamics of
broadcasting companies in the Middle East now? What do journalists in
the region see as their role and responsibilities? What are attitudes
toward the U.S.? What do people think of Alhurra and Radio Sawa? How
can the U.S. most effectively promote the development of free, fair and
open media in the Middle East? How might Alhurra and Radio Sawa
contribute to those goals?
I would like to offer Senators Biden and Nelson a chance to make
opening remarks, and then let us begin with Mr. Tomlinson. To ensure as
much time as possible for discussion, I would ask witnesses to confine
their remarks to about five minutes. Their testimony can be entered in
the record in full.
STATEMENT OF HON. KENNETH Y. TOMLINSON, CHAIRMAN, BROADCASTING
BOARD OF GOVERNORS
Mr. Tomlinson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief.
You have the statement for the record.
I will point out that Norm Pattiz has both a film which is
going to be fascinating insight into Alhurra, our new
television voice, but we also have preliminary survey data from
the region to show the kind of quick impact we have had in the
region, as well as definitive survey data from Nielsen
demonstrating the extraordinary success of Radio Sawa.
I will also point out that last night for the first time in
19 years, Norm Pattiz was not court side for a Lakers playoff
game, which is an indication of the seriousness that he has
brought to the table here. Because I assure you that in past
years, he never would have missed a playoff game for such a
hearing.
To my left is Mouafac Harb, who is News Director of Radio
Sawa and News Director of Alhurra. I was walking down the
hallway of VOA today and someone stopped me and said, you know,
I think Mouafac Harb might be the most important single person
involved in broadcasting public diplomacy, and I really could
not disagree with that. I am honored to be with both of these
gentlemen.
On February 14 of this year, with the enthusiastic support
of President Bush and key leaders of the administration and the
Congress, BBG launched its new Arabic language television
network called Alhurra. Alhurra was created out in northern
Virginia in a little more than 4 months, a state-of-the-art
studio that we would be proud for anyone to see. But on that
day that as we opened with the magnificent sets that Norm
Pattiz was responsible for putting together, the extraordinary
thing to me was the sea of Middle Eastern faces--news men, news
women enthusiastically working to make this network a
successful model of journalistic standards in this world.
President Bush spoke of open debate and truth when he
described what this network can mean to the people of the
Middle East. The network will challenge the voices of hate and
repression with truth and the voices of tolerance and
moderation. Viewers will witness free and open discussions not
just about the conflict in the Middle East, but also about
subjects critical to that region's future--economic
development, human rights, respect for minorities.
Our competitive edge in the Middle East is our dedication
to truth and free and open debate. People have asked from the
beginning how in the world will you guys be able to compete
with Al Jazeera and others out there. I contend that time and
again Radio Sawa is demonstrating that it is first-rate. If you
give accurate news, if people come to depend on the news, if
they hear free and open debate, they will come to such a
station.
We are also proud of what we have done in other aspects of
international broadcasting. Voice of America has been active in
a number of different areas, which we will mention as we go
along today. Especially important at Voice of America is a new
daily news program to Iran, obviously, in Persian. It has been
a terrific success and we are proud of it.
Now, Radio Sawa has been a phenomenal success, and Norm
will have a lot to say about that in terms of the Nielsen
survey.
We were asked repeatedly on Alhurra how are you going to
know anyone is listening to you. I have never been involved in
a project that I had more faith was going to be a success than
the Alhurra project, but I am glad that we have some quick
survey data indicating the initial impact. We will have more
data in the summer. I am an old print journalist and my
attitude, Mr. Chairman, toward some of this is the attitude of
Mark Twain who said, ``figures lie and liars figure.'' But we
do need the statistical indication of our presence there, and
that we will give you today.
The board also has been involved, in addition to our
Persian initiative, in expansions at VOA in Indonesia. We have
an important new service to Pakistan in Urdu language
broadcasting that our colleague Steve Simmons of the Board of
Governors has been a great force behind.
We have a lot to tell you about and we look forward to your
questions.
I will end on just one quick note. We are frequently asked
about coordination. We are frequently asked about the way we
work with other aspects of the administration. Of course,
Senator Biden, being the father of this broadcast board, put
together a force that would, in fact, be a firewall and serve a
unique role in communications around the world. But I have
served four administrations in Washington, as the Director of
the Voice of America, a member of the BIB board and the like,
and I have never seen a better working relationship between the
White House and international broadcasting than we have now. We
have the White House Office of Global Communications to thank
for that. They were enormously supportive and helpful in
developing what we are doing at Alhurra.
Let me close on this. We need to understand the importance
of maintaining the strength of public diplomacy and the
traditions of international broadcasting. I am convinced we
will not be successful in our overall mission of delivering our
message to the world if we fail to grasp that these are two
different spheres and that they operate according to two
different sets of rules.
It is very important that government spokesmen take
America's message to the world passionately and relentlessly.
We should not be ashamed of public advocacy on behalf of
freedom and democracy and the United States of America.
International broadcasting, on a parallel and complementary
track, is called upon to reflect the highest standards of
independent journalism as the best means of demonstrating to
international audiences that truth is on the side of democratic
values.
We in America are fortunate that telling the truth works to
our long-term advantage. That is why international
broadcasting, I believe, is so important in this country.
We thank you for the invitation. We look forward to
answering your questions, and I look forward to Norm's
presentation because he usually does a pretty good job.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tomlinson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Kenneth Y. Tomlinson
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, we greatly appreciate
the opportunity to appear before you today to talk about the efforts of
the Broadcasting Board of Governors to communicate with the people in
the Islamic world. I am joined by fellow board member Norman Pattiz,
the father of Radio Sawa and an irrepressible force for international
broadcasting, and by Mouafac Harb, the News Director for the Middle
East Television Network. Together we hope to give you a full picture of
the BBG's efforts to assist the war on terrorism, and become a
continuously available source of news for the people of the Middle
East.
As this committee well knows, the BBG has greatly expanded its
reach and broadcast hours to the Islamic world in the past three years.
There has been literally an enormous increase in the availability of
U.S.-sponsored news and information on radio and television to this
region. Radio Sawa, Radio Farda, VOA-TV's Persian programming, and now
the Middle East Television Network (MTN) are relative newcomers on the
scene, but are making a big impact.
On February 14 of this year, with the enthusiastic support of
President Bush and key leaders of the Administration and Congress, the
BBG launched its new Arabic-language television network called
``Alhurra'' (``The Free One'' in Arabic). Even before this station went
on the air, it was heavily criticized in the Arab world as a propaganda
arm of the U.S. Government. It has been called a ``voice of the CIA''
whose aim is to ``brainwash Arabs'' and described as part of ``a long-
term plan to dominate the minds and ideas of Iraqis and Arabs.'' But
Alhurra is none of these things. Its mission is that of all U.S.
international broadcasting--to promote and sustain freedom and
democracy by broadcasting accurate and objective news and information
about the United States and the world.
Through its adherence to Western journalistic standards, through
its objective, accurate reporting, Alhurra can gain the credibility we
need to build an audience and offer Middle Eastern audiences a new
balanced view of world events. While criticism in the Arab press
continues, we are connecting with the people--our target audience--and
they are sending us hundreds of e-mails to welcome us. ``You are much
needed to balance biased news controlled by those full of hatred to
western world,'' reads one. ``This is the first step to fight the `hate
culture' that feeds terrorism,'' says another. ``I hope your channel
[will help] our Arab brothers . . . to tell the truth from all that is
going on.''
In a little more than four months, the BBG established a state-of-
the-art broadcast facility in Northern Virginia to house Alhurra. Since
October some 900,000 feet of cable have been installed in this
facility. But what is truly extraordinary is the sea of Middle Eastern
faces--newsmen and newswomen--enthusiastically working to make this
network a successful model of journalistic standards. Many of these
individuals are well known media figures in the Middle East and gave up
promising careers overseas to practice journalism with MTN.
President Bush spoke of ``open debate'' and ``truth'' when he
described what this network can mean to the people of the Middle East.
The network will challenge the voices of hate and repression with truth
and the voices of tolerance and moderation. Viewers will witness free
and open discussions, not just about conflict in the Middle East, but
also about subjects critical to that region's future--economic
development, human rights and respect for minorities.
Our competitive edge in the Middle East is our dedication to truth
and free and open debate. We will provide an example of democracy and a
free press in a media market dominated by sensationalism and
distortion. That is also the basis for the success of the Voice of
America's new Persian-language satellite television program ``News and
Views'' to the people of Iran. Less than three months after that
program was launched last summer, one independent survey showed ``News
and Views'' was reaching a remarkable 12 percent of the country's over-
18 population.
Typical of what creative broadcasting can do is the new segment
launched by ``News and Views'' called ``Your Voice.'' Iranian viewers
were invited to submit e-mails on the controversy surrounding the
February 20th parliamentary elections--from the banning of candidates
to calls for an election boycott. We opened a dialogue that is allowing
Iranians to share their views with other Iranians--and the response has
been extraordinary.
My predecessors likewise brought innovation to our radio broadcasts
that proved to be vital to the success of our Afghan Radio Network
which broadcasts in Dari and Pashto, our youth-oriented Radio Farda to
Iran, and Radio Sawa to the Arab world. When Norm Pattiz was in the
process of creating Radio Sawa, he traveled throughout the Middle East
to negotiate heretofore unattainable agreements for American AM and FM
transmitters in Middle Eastern countries so that we could be heard on
the radios of choice in the region.
Radio Sawa has been a phenomenal success. A survey by ACNielsen
research last fall demonstrated that Sawa has achieved market
dominance--an average listenership of 42 percent in the important age
group between 15 and 29--in key Middle Eastern countries.
Radio Sawa faced the same skepticism as Alhurra before it was
launched. Critics conceded Arabs might listen to our music, but not our
news. Yet this same ACNielsen survey found that, in a region where
skepticism towards the U.S. is high and boycotts of U.S. products are
common, Radio Sawa was found to be a reliable source of news and
information by 73 percent of its weekly listenership.
In a matter of months, Sawa built the largest radio news-gathering
operation in the Middle East presenting up-to-the minute news 24 hours
a day and over 325 newscasts per week. It was the very reliability of
our Sawa news that made us the leading source for news in Iraq even as
we went to war there.
News also accounts for the surprising audience that ACNielsen
documented for Sawa among older listeners in target countries in the
Middle East--better than 20 percent among the general population over
30. Mr. Chairman, I will submit for the record highlights of this
survey.
Under the leadership of Mouafac Harb, Sawa's outstanding News
Director who also assumes that post for Alhurra, the station also is
the source of a host of shows that explore freedom and democracy.
In Indonesia, the Voice of America has enhanced its radio and TV
offerings to reach this large Islamic population. ``Jurnal VOA,'' a 25-
minute live, interactive news program, appears on Indonesia's ``Metro
TV.'' Another TV offering, ``Doing Business,'' airs every Monday on
TVRI. ``VOA Direct Connection,'' a half-hour weekly radio program, airs
each Friday evening on more than 40 satellite affiliates around
Indonesia.
This month, we launched a new one-hour interactive talk show,
``Salam VOA,'' that will air on JTV in Surabaya. In addition, VOA will
supply Trans TV with a weekly 5-minute U.S. election wrap-up, to air on
its morning news program. We anticipate doubling our radio broadcasts
to five hours a day and increasing TV from one to five hours a week.
The Board's latest initiative is a new youth-oriented Urdu
broadcast to Pakistan where listeners would be served contemporary
Pakistani and western music along with news and current affairs
features and subjects ranging from education to business to health. We
hope to increase our hours of broadcast as well as the power of our
broadcasts to this key country in the war on terrorism.
Just this week we began broadcasting to Iraq over channel 12 in
Baghdad, available through terrestrial transmission. Iraqis also have
access to Alhurra's programming delivered via Arabsat. In the weeks
ahead, we will be phasing in special programming for Iraq, including
newscasts, talk shows and roundtables. Additional terrestrial
transmitters in Basra and three other cities should be on-line in the
near future.
Much of criticism of Alhurra--again before we even launched--was
that we would be the mouthpiece of the U.S. Government, sending cleared
messages and propaganda to taint Arab minds. None of our programming in
any part of the world seeks to do this. VOA's long-standing Charter,
and more recently the U.S. International Broadcasting Act, guard
against this. But we must demonstrate this every day to our audiences
and earn their trust and loyalty over time. This does not mean that we
ignore our mission to promote and sustain freedom and democracy. Our
programming frequently features U.S. policymakers and programming that
accurately explains the U.S. policy measures that so often are maligned
in the Middle East.
In continuing all of our broadcast initiatives, we will strive to
give our listeners the same tool we have always provided through
international broadcasting: the information they need to compare their
political, economic, and social systems to those that exist elsewhere
in the world, and to assess their own leadership.
In creating a broadcast environment that also reflects the foreign
policy priorities of the United States, we look to the Department of
State for guidance, expertise, and participation in our programs. I
have served four Administrations in Washington--all of them connected
with international broadcasting. Never have I seen a better working
relationship between the White House, the State Department; and
international broadcasting.
The White House Office of Global Communications has been
extraordinarily supportive in helping us assess priorities and expand
what we are doing as in Middle East Television. This office also has
been a major enabler in helping the BBG to gain access to policy makers
for interviews on major world events.
Under Secretary Margaret Tutwiler, who represents the Secretary at
Board meetings, has been deeply interested in broadcasting's strategic
goals and priorities and is a full participant in Board decision-
making. Our diplomats overseas also have helped-us gain valuable
transmission resources in countries to which we broadcast.
We need to understand the importance of maintaining the strength of
public diplomacy and the traditions of international broadcasting. I am
convinced that we will not be successful in our overall mission of
delivering our message to the world if we fail to grasp that these are
two different spheres and that they operate according to two different
sets of rules.
It is very important that government spokesmen take America's
message to the world--passionately and relentlessly. We should not be
ashamed of public advocacy on behalf of freedom and democracy and the
United States of America. International broadcasting, on a parallel and
complementary track, is called upon to reflect the highest standards of
independent journalism as the best means of demonstrating to
international audiences that truth is on the side of democratic values.
Thirty years ago, RFE/RL and VOA began broadcasting the Watergate
hearings. Those broadcasts caused heartburn for many in Washington, but
looking back we see they constituted a veritable civics lesson on the
importance of separation of powers and rule of law. Over the years I
have heard so many citizens of post-communist countries tell how those
broadcasts helped them understand the real meaning of freedom and
democracy. Alhurra is fortunate to make its debut in a Presidential
election year. It will cover the U.S. race from one end to the other,
showing day by day how our election process works.
We in America are fortunate that telling the truth works to our
long-term advantage. That is why international broadcasting is so
important to this country.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my formal statement. I will be happy
to answer any questions that your subcommittee might have.
Senator Sununu. Thank you, Mr. Tomlinson.
At this time, I would like to call on the subcommittee's
ranking member, Senator Nelson, for his opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BILL NELSON
Senator Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
A large scale international television and the Internet, I
think, is essential in winning the war on terrorism. When we
hear the commentary in the last few days of what is, in fact,
happening on the ground being, to be charitable, misconstrued
by some of the Arab television networks, it becomes all the
more important that the interests of the free world have an
ability to communicate with people of different civilizations.
So in the course of this hearing, which I am going to have
to be in and out of, Mr. Chairman, we are going to be examining
whether investment and recapitalization of the transmission
capabilities are needed and increasing our television
programming and broadening our outreach to the Muslim world.
This is most timely that you are having this subcommittee
hearing.
We have already expanded our services to the region in
Arabic and Persian. This committee is one which voted to
increase the President's budget for broadcasting when we moved
the Foreign Assistance Authorization Act earlier this year.
So thank you for the opportunity and I thank the witnesses
for coming and testifying to us.
Senator Sununu. Thank you, Senator Nelson.
At this time, we are pleased to take the testimony from
Norman Pattiz. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF HON. NORMAN J. PATTIZ, GOVERNOR, BROADCASTING
BOARD OF GOVERNORS
Mr. Pattiz. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members
of the subcommittee, Senator Nelson. It is a pleasure to be
here.
I will just expand on what Chairman Tomlinson said about my
missing the first Lakers playoff game in 18 years in order to
be here. That is true, but I am a broadcaster by trade and I
considered this an honor and a privilege to have been appointed
by two Presidents of different parties to do something that is
arguably more important than it has ever been, or as important
as it has ever been certainly in our history, that takes
advantage of what I have done for a living all my life in a
country that has been very, very good to me. So go Lakers, but
priorities are priorities, and this is where I need to be and
this where I am.
I got involved in the Broadcasting Board of Governors about
3 years ago. I was sworn-in in November of 2000, and at the
time, I was the only broadcaster on the board. I am happy to
say that we now have a number of people with broadcast and
journalism experience, but I was the only broadcaster. As such,
I was asked to serve as the co-chair of the Language Review
Committee, which is the committee that is mandated by Congress
to, on an annual basis, look at how we deploy our resources
across the 60-plus language services that we broadcast in every
year.
One area stood out when I was taking a look at the various
areas that we were funding, not because of what we were doing,
but because of what we were not doing. That area was the Middle
East. At the time, our total commitment to the Middle East was
7 hours a day of Arabic language programming from the Voice of
America Arabic Service, transmitted on short wave which
practically nobody listened to, on a very weak medium wave
signal out of the Island of Rhodes. That was our commitment to
Middle East broadcasting.
I reported that to the board and the board in so many words
said, congratulations, Norm, good job. We are now forming a
Middle East committee. You will be the chairman of it. Go fix
it.
So within a month, I was on my way to the Middle East with
some staffers to assess what was possible in the region, and a
lot was possible. But first, impressions of what was going on
in the region. Taking a look at the media environment in the
region--and I am not saying this is what takes place in every
aspect of the media environment--it is not uncommon at all to
hear hate-speak on radio and television, incitement to
violence, disinformation, government censorship, and
journalistic self-censorship. It is within that environment
that the Arab street gets its impressions not only of U.S.
policy, which they despise, but of our culture, our society,
our people, our values. We thought we needed to do a much
better job of presenting accurately what our policies are so
that our audiences could make more informed decisions. And we
need to reach the largest possible audience that we could
reach.
There was a tremendous opportunity with Radio Sawa, which
at the time we did not know was going to be ``Radio Sawa.'' We
knew it was going to be something in Arabic on the radio.
I met with heads of state, ministers of information,
academics, journalists. We did some focus groups in several
countries. And it was obvious that there was an opportunity to
reach a very large percentage of the population, the largest
percentage of the population actually, which is the 30 and
under segment that is underserved by the media and is
incredibly important to the long-term interests of the United
States. By putting something on the air that was contemporary;
that took advantage of the best in Western broadcasting
techniques and technology; that utilized AM, FM, digital audio,
satellite technology; and that fulfills the role of ``marrying
the mission to the market;'' we attracted an audience for our
primary mission, which is a journalistic mission.
So we put Radio Sawa on the air, which was a mix of Western
and Arabic music, heavily researched. Let me just say that
Radio Sawa and Alhurra are the most researched projects in the
history of international broadcasting. The fact of the matter
is I cannot do a project if I do not have the research with
which to determine what the opportunities are within the
marketplace, who it is we are trying to reach, who it is we are
trying to communicate with, and what those messages ought to
be. If you do not have that, then you are shooting blanks.
So we got a lot of information to find out what it would
take to resonate with our audience because radio, unlike
television, is a very different medium. Radio is a medium of
formats, and people tend to listen to their favorite radio
stations to the exclusion of other radio stations. Television
is very different. It is a medium of programs, and
consequently, people tune into various programs at various
times because they want to see those programs. But they are not
intrinsically loyal to a particular television station. It does
not define who they are. It is different with radio. A lot of
people define who they are by the radio station they listen to.
I dare say if I stepped into any one of your automobiles today
and checked the settings on your radios, I would know something
about who it was who was driving that car.
So radio has a very unique way of connecting primarily with
the 30 and under audience, and Radio Sawa has used all of that
knowledge that we have to deliver a very, very large audience
to news and information that is second to none. We broadcast
over 5 hours of original news and informational programming
every single day. We break for special events when events on
the ground warrant it. We will go for 4, 5, 6 hours
continuously in order to fulfill our journalistic mission. And
from the very beginning, we knew that Sawa was going to be
successful based upon the original research that we were doing
and the tracking research that we do on a regular basis.
We have had a lot of negative information passed around in
the press in the Middle East and some over here about the
chances for success of Alhurra. I have not been too terribly
concerned about that, nor do I think the chairman or Mouafac
have been terribly concerned about that, because frankly it is
everything we heard about Radio Sawa. The difference is when we
started Radio Sawa, we did it market by market, and when we
started Alhurra, we did it via satellite throughout the whole
region. So the entire media world knew we were coming and had
their thoughts, and they were giving us their thoughts well in
advance of us even being on the air.
Having said that, knowing that these are supposed to be
brief remarks--and I have probably worn out my welcome and
there is a short video we want to show you--I want to give you
some information that has just been completed on Radio Sawa and
on Alhurra. We have been doing research on Sawa for a number of
years now. Well, for 2 years. We have been on the air for 2
years. And Sawa has shown that it can generate a significant
audience, and we have the research result--and I believe we
have supplied it to the committee--of the latest Nielsen study
showing that Sawa, in terms of 15-plus numbers, has a very
large share across the region. In terms of its target audience
numbers, it has an even larger share across the region. In
terms of reliability and credibility, it is viewed very highly
by its listeners for the reliability and credibility of the
news, coming from an obviously American radio station.
I will just say this. Shortly after going on the air in
Amman, Jordan, we did a research study that showed that within
30 days Sawa was the favorite radio station of over 50 percent
of our target audience and was listened to weekly by 90 percent
of our target audience. But in terms of news credibility, only
1 percent of our audience, a month after it went on the air,
thought we were reliable and credible. Six months later, we
still had those large numbers for ``favorite radio station''
and those large numbers of people who were listening every
week, but in terms of news and information reliability and
credibility, the number had gone up to 40 percent.
So the point is to those people who will say if you cannot
trust the messenger, do not trust the message--our mission is
to walk the walk. Our mission is to give them an example of
what a free press is in the American tradition, and we have
demonstrated with Radio Sawa that they will listen and they
will be affected. As a matter of fact, that same Nielsen
research shows that, by a margin of about 2 to 1, slightly
under 2 to 1, Radio Sawa listeners have a more positive view of
the United States of America than do non-Radio Sawa listeners.
This is a long-term project. We are late in the game.
Nothing is going to get changed overnight, but I think we are
definitely having an effect with Sawa.
As far as Alhurra is concerned, since we have demonstrated
the fact that a U.S.-sponsored radio station can be viewed as
reliable and credible and very popular amongst its audience,
then we ought to engage in television where the real game is
taking place and where 90 percent of the Arab population gets
its news and information.
So we have put together a 21st century news and
information-driven television station. It is news and
information-driven but it is not all news and information. We
also have magazine shows. We have travel shows, shows on health
and fitness, shows on fashion, shows on food, a number of
different kinds of programming to attract a wider body of
viewers so that we can affect them with our news and
information programming.
Every hour at the top of the hour and at the bottom of the
hour, we do news even when we are doing the programming that is
not primarily news and information. In prime time, we do two 1-
hour live newscasts. Obviously, we break for breaking stories,
as we have done on many occasions over the last few weeks, to
cover the breaking stories that are going on within the region.
But the question that we get asked over and over again,
even though we have only been on the air for 2 months and we
have only been 24 hours for about 3 weeks, is who is listening,
who is watching. Well, it is early. We have research in the
field right now that will ask many, many, many questions. But
in order to get a feel for where we are, we contracted with
Ipsos-Stat, which is the French company that does research in
the Middle East and provides much of the audience research for
television throughout the Middle East. We contracted with them
to do a telephone survey in several cities throughout the
region to get a sense of whether or not people had even heard
of us, whether people were watching us, and what they felt
about us.
This is very preliminary stuff, and it is really the
information that we would normally just use internally to let
us know how we are doing and what we need to focus on. But it
came back a few days ago, and I wanted to share it with you
because, quite frankly, it is very impressive. It is more
impressive than we anticipated.
This is a telephone survey, so it is people who have
telephones and it is also people who have access to satellite
television. Now, you have 300 million people in the region. And
170 million of them are over the age of 15, and about 40
percent of those people have satellite access. So you are
talking about in excess of 70 million people here. So this is a
big chunk of people.
In taking a look at individual cities, let me just tell you
which cities we looked at because I am going to mention them by
country. But I want you to know which cities we actually looked
at because these are more city numbers than country numbers. In
Egypt, we surveyed Cairo and Alexandria. In Jordan, we surveyed
Amman, Irbid, and Zarka. In the Emirates, we surveyed Abu Dhabi
and Dubai. In Lebanon, Beirut. Kuwait, Kuwait City. Saudi
Arabia, Jeddah and Riyadh. Syria, Damascus and Aleppo.
The information is as follows. In terms of weekly
listening, persons 15-plus, in Egypt, 18 percent; in Jordan, 37
percent; in Lebanon, 40 percent; in the Emirates, 19 percent;
in Kuwait, 44 percent; in Syria, 29 percent; and in Saudi
Arabia, 19 percent. These are significant numbers for a station
that has been on the air for a very, very short time, and has
only been on the air 24 hours a day for a very, very short
period of time.
The fact that we got all that negative publicity was
probably a blessing in disguise. I think it is very interesting
that they issued a fatwah against us in Saudi Arabia, yet in
spite of that, we can show that 19 percent answered
affirmatively.
Let me give you a sense of news reliability because we
asked those same people how reliable do you feel the news on
Alhurra is. In the categories of ``very reliable'' and
``somewhat reliable,'' in Egypt, 40 percent said reliable; in
Jordan, 44 percent; in Lebanon, 54 percent; in the United Arab
Emirates, 65 percent; in Kuwait, 61 percent; in Syria, 37
percent; and in Saudi Arabia, 70 percent.
So this is real, real preliminary stuff, but it is an
indicator and it is a good indicator. We are there, and we are
a player in this marketplace right now. We will have full and
complete research within the next 45 to 60 days which is being
done right now, and then we will have another Nielsen survey
which we will be doing in June and July.
With your indulgence, what I would like to do is direct
your attention to that monitor over there and give you a sense
of what this station looks like. We have taken a short
promotional video and edited it down to an even shorter
promotional video with some English narration, and added some
recent coverage in the American media--a piece that was done on
the News Hour that shows you how the American media has covered
what we are doing--and then some very quick cuts of our people
in the field doing the various types of programming, the live
news, the roundtable discussions, the interviews, and so forth.
This piece runs just a little bit over 3 minutes, so with your
indulgence, Mr. Chairman, I would like to play that for you.
Senator Nelson. Was that fatwah issued with the approval of
the Government of Saudi Arabia?
Mr. Harb. I do not think it was, but the person who issued
the fatwah is a government employee.
Senator Nelson. It was.
Mr. Harb. Yes, sir.
Mr. Pattiz. He is a government employee. I do not know that
you could get the Saudi Arabian Government to say it issued a
fatwah, but this is a religious leader who is in the employ of
the Saudi Government.
Senator Nelson. And did that fatwah get issued before the
most recent bombing in Saudi Arabia?
Mr. Pattiz. I think it was issued before we ever hit the
air. Do not watch, do not participate, do not buy commercials,
which I thought was interesting since we are non-commercial. If
memory serves me, that was something that was issued before we
had even started broadcasting on February 14, or at least
shortly thereafter.
Senator Nelson. Maybe they are changing their tune, Mr.
Chairman, after the most recent bombing.
[Video shown.]
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pattiz follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Norman J. Pattiz
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I welcome the
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss our most recent
programs in the Middle East and to give you a quick video glimpse of
some of the stories covered by Alhurra as well as the quality of its
production.
As Mr. Tomlinson mentioned, Alhurra has been on the air for just
over two months. We have plunged into a Middle East media environment
that is rich in satellite programming and critical, breaking news. But
it is not an environment that is steeped in same traditions of
journalism and objective news analysis that we are familiar with.
Television and radio broadcasters in the region are, for the most part,
government owned, and reflect a particular point of view that can be
destructive to opinion about the United States. We hope to make a
difference by filling the gap in accurate, objective news coverage.
Before I play the short video clip on Alhurra, I would like to
emphasize that the products the BBG has initiated over the past three
years were heavily researched before we invested in them. We believe we
can be most successful when we tailor our program mix to the audience
we are trying to reach, using music and other non-news feature
programming when appropriate. We must also broadcast in a manner that
is sensitive to the culture and traditions of our audiences. Our
formats must be appealing, and our programs compelling and
technologically state-of-the-art in order to compete. In the Middle
East, while audiences lack objective information about the United
States and our leadership in the world, there is no lack of satellite
stations that are competing with us for the same audience. We must set
ourselves apart, and I believe that Radio Sawa and Alhurra television
are doing that.
For the development of Radio Sawa, we traveled to the region and
identified a target audience of the large portion of the population
that is under the age of 35. We researched what programming would draw
them to an AM or FM station, and when we found they would be attracted
by modern music, we researched their music preferences. This music-
based format, along with features designed to appeal to young
audiences, provides the foundation for our news and information
programming. So far, it has worked. As Chairman Tomlinson mentioned in
his statement, the audience listens, and they listen for the news.
Let me add another survey result to what you have already heard
about Sawa listening. In a survey conducted in Morocco--Radio Sawa's
newest market in the Middle East--in February 2004, Nielsen found that
72 percent of the general population over the age of 15 listened to
Radio Sawa. Sawa is even stronger in its 15 to 29 core age group. Among
this market segment, Sawa showed a listening rate of 87.5 percent. The
rate of listening among audiences over the age of 30 is 63.5 percent,
and 77 percent of weekly listeners found Sawa's news reliable.
The success of Radio Sawa helped fuel the creation of Alhurra, our
television broadcast to the Middle East. After funding first became
available in April 2003, we assembled a highly skilled team of
professionals to take on the daunting task of getting a 24 hour a day
station on the air by the beginning of 2004. After months of overcoming
the many daily challenges that came our way, we launched the program on
February 14. We believe we have a sophisticated product that will
compete favorably with the well-established, and well-funded, satellite
stations that exist in the region.
The BBG's use of research also applies to program delivery, which
can also pose major diplomatic and engineering challenges. As you know,
we are navigating a world where all transmission options are not
uniformly available or utilized in every region. Not only do we ``marry
the mission to the market'' when we develop our program content, but we
also do so when we choose transmission options. Some markets still
require shortwave delivery. Other markets, as in the Middle East and
surrounding regions, are much like the U.S. market: they listen to AM
and FM radio, and get much of their news from television. Gaining
access to AM and FM frequencies requires permission from foreign
governments to install or lease transmission within their boundaries.
Intense effort from the BBG, together with committed assistance from
the State Department, has provided a network of about 20 AM and FM
transmitters from Morocco to Kuwait to support Radio Sawa, and is
working to establish terrestrial transmission in Iraq.
I'd now like to play a short video which will give you a clear idea
of the substance and flavor of Alhurra.
Senator Sununu. Thank you very much for your presentation.
Mr. Harb, welcome.
STATEMENT OF MOUAFAC HARB, NEWS DIRECTOR, ALHURRA, MIDDLE EAST
TELEVISION NETWORK, BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS
Mr. Harb. On behalf of my colleagues at Radio Sawa and
Alhurra, I thank you for inviting me to testify today. I am
honored to have been given a role in establishing both Radio
Sawa and Alhurra television. We have been fortunate in the
leadership and support we have received from the
administration, Congress, and the Broadcasting Board of
Governors.
It has been deeply satisfying to see Sawa and Alhurra
develop from inspiration to reality with staff, stations, and a
steadily growing audience.
The mission of this new Middle East television network is
to broadcast accurate, timely, and relevant news and
information about the region, the world, and the United States
to a broad Arab-speaking audience. By doing this, we seek to
foster freedom and democracy in the Middle East.
That is a tall order. I am proud to tell you that we are
beginning to fill it. All of us who work in these operations
can feel it, and the data we have gathered--and Governor Pattiz
just mentioned a little bit about it--although early, appear to
back that up.
It will take time, but I am confident we will succeed.
Until Sawa and Alhurra began broadcasting, people in the
Arabic-speaking world got a steady diet of variations of just
one story: Arab humiliation. The actual events are different
from story to story and day to day. But they all carry this one
message. It tells them that the Americans and the Israelis are
the source of all the trouble in their lives. They bear no
responsibility themselves.
News outlets in the Middle East, especially television news
outlets, see themselves as mirrors of public opinion and their
audience's emotions. So they come at their reporting with a
point of view already in place, and as a result, they broadcast
material that inflames viewers against America.
In the past few years, the Middle East has been a two-
channel television market when it comes to news and
information. The ratings for these two channels have been
largely determined by one person and not by good journalism,
and that person is Osama bin Laden. He knows neither channel
wants to be frozen out and he plays that for all it is worth,
rewarding one or the other with an exclusive tape of his latest
threats. It is not about going out to find a scoop and go after
a story. You wait in your newsroom praying for a tape to show
up from al-Zarqawi or Osama bin Laden and then all American
networks and Western networks will carry the message.
Well, it is not a two-channel market anymore, and the new
player does not need to please bin Laden. Since February 14,
Alhurra has brought a new idea to journalism in the Middle
East--telling the truth. We do our work the way it is supposed
to be done. We play it straight and we behave like news
professionals because that is what we are.
As Mr. Pattiz mentioned, we were businesslike in our
approach. We are heavily researched and we studied our market
from Morocco to the Persian Gulf. We used what we learned to
shape our product. What came out was the region's first news
and information channel dedicated to telling the story
completely and accurately. That means going beyond just
reporting what happened. We provide background and context to
explain why something happened and what the ramifications might
be.
An example of this happened a couple of weeks ago in our
coverage of the assassination of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz
Rantissi. Alhurra was ending one of its hour-long newscasts
when the story broke. We immediately reported it on the
newscast. Then we followed up the initial report with 5 hours
of live coverage, including reaction and analysis from around
the world and a look at what this would mean for the future of
Hamas, the Palestinian people, and Israeli/Palestinian
relations.
You cannot do that kind of work with amateurs. We have been
able to recruit the best and the brightest, real pros from
inside and outside the Middle East, from the United States as
well. On the editorial side, most of the people are from the
region and were hand-picked to be representative of the wide
territory we serve.
Everyone we have hired shares our sense of journalistic
values. In fact, during the first round of interviews that I
have conducted myself, many of them asked me if Alhurra would
be pure propaganda and if it could really be free, especially
if it was funded by the government. My answer, of course, was
it will be free. The fact that they were asking this question
and they were concerned about this, they had just passed a
major step for getting the job.
For some of my colleagues, joining the staff of Alhurra
involved personal sacrifice, moving half a world away from
family and friends to work for an organization that some people
back home have been taught to believe is their enemy. I work
with courageous people.
Alhurra has been on the air only 2\1/2\ months. In that
time, the Middle East has endured some of the toughest news
stories of the decade. Alhurra has been there to cover them. We
were the first to report on a number of stories, and we have
garnered exclusive interviews. We created a program schedule
for Alhurra that is flexible enough that we can break into
regularly scheduled programming to cover breaking news if it is
warranted.
Also in that short period of time, we have been on the
receiving end of a lot of unfocused criticism from our
competitors and their keepers. That tells us that we have their
attention. It is very important to mention here that most of
the vicious articles that were directed at Alhurra came before
we launched Alhurra and they came from media outlets funded by
so-called friendly Arab governments. I think Alhurra and Radio
Sawa were the first attempt by the United States to reach out
directly to the Arab audience.
Television is a real ``me too'' industry. If a program
succeeds on one network, you are likely to see copies start
popping up on the other ones. This is true everywhere.
We are working to establish the gold standard that the
other guys will want to rip off: the best technology, the
finest professionals, the most innovative programming, the most
eye-catching sets that you saw on the video, and the most
compelling visuals. Our brand is freedom and democracy. We want
them to follow us there.
Thank you again for allowing me to appear before you today.
I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harb follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mouafac Harb
Let me first thank you for inviting me to testify today. I am
honored to have been given a role in establishing both Radio Sawa and
Alhurra television. We have been fortunate in the leadership and
support we have received from the Administration, the Congress, and the
Broadcasting Board of Governors.
It has been deeply satisfying to see Sawa and Alhurra develop from
inspiration to reality with staff, stations, and a steadily growing
audience.
The mission of this new Middle East Television Network is to
broadcast accurate, timely and relevant news and information about the
region, the world, and the United States to a broad, Arabic-speaking
audience. By doing this, we seek to foster freedom and democracy in the
Middle East.
That's a tall order. And I'm proud to tell you that we are
beginning to fill it. All of us who work in these operations can feel
it, and the data we've gathered--although early--appear to back that
up.
It will take time, but I am confident we will succeed.
Until Sawa and Alhurra began broadcasting, people in the Arabic-
speaking world got a steady diet of variations of just one story: Arab
humiliation. The actual events are different from story to story and
day to day. But they all carry this one message. It tells them that the
Americans and Israelis are the source of all the trouble in their
lives. They bear no responsibility themselves.
News outlets in the Middle East, especially television news
outlets, see themselves as mirrors of public opinion and their
audience's emotions. So they come at their reporting with a point of
view already in place, and as a result they broadcast material that
inflames viewers against America.
In the past few years, the Middle East has been a two-channel
television market when it comes to news and information. The ratings
for these two channels have been largely determined by one person and
not by good journalism: Osama bin Laden. He knows neither channel wants
to be frozen out, and he plays that for all it's worth, rewarding one
or the other with an ``exclusive'' tape of his latest threats.
Well, it's not a two-channel market anymore, and the new player
doesn't need to please bin Laden. Since February 14, Alhurra has
brought a new idea to journalism in the Middle East--telling the truth.
We do our work the way it's supposed to be done. We play it straight,
and we behave like news professionals because that's what we are.
As Mr. Pattiz mentioned, we were business-like in our approach, and
we studied our market from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Persian Gulf.
We used what we learned to shape our product. What came out was the
region's first news and information channel dedicated to telling the
story completely and accurately. That means going beyond just reporting
what happened. We provide background and context to explain why
something happened and what the ramifications might be.
An example of this happened a couple of weeks ago in our coverage
of the assassination of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantissi. Alhurra was
ending one of its hour-long newscasts when the story broke. We
immediately reported it on the newscast. Then we followed up the
initial report with five hours of live coverage, including reaction and
analysis from around the world, and a look at what this would mean for
the future of Hamas and Israeli/Palestinian relations.
You can't do that kind of work with amateurs. We've been able to
recruit the best and the brightest--real pros from inside and outside
the Middle East. On the editorial side, most of the people are from the
region and were hand-picked to be representative of the wide territory
we serve.
Everyone we've hired shares our sense of journalistic values. In
fact, during the first round of interviews, many of them asked me if
Alhurra could really be free if it was funded by the government. My
answer, of course, was yes. And if they were astute enough to be
concerned about this, they had just passed a major test for getting the
job.
For some of my colleagues, joining the staff of Alhurra involved
personal sacrifice--moving half a world away from family and friends to
work for an organization that some people back home have been taught to
believe is their enemy. I work with courageous people.
Alhurra has been on the air only two and a half months. In that
time, the Middle East has endured some of the toughest news stories of
the decade. Alhurra has been there to cover them. We were the first to
report on a number of stories and we've garnered exclusive interviews.
We created a program schedule for Alhurra that is flexible enough that
we can break into regularly scheduled programming to cover breaking
news if it is warranted.
Also in that short period of time, we've been on the receiving end
of a lot of unfocused criticism from our competitors and their keepers.
That tells us that we have their attention.
Good. We want that.
Television is a real ``me too'' industry. If a program succeeds on
one network, you're likely to see copies start popping up on the other
ones. This is true everywhere.
We're working to establish the gold standard that the ``other
guys'' will want to rip off--the best technology, the finest
professionals, the most innovative programming, the most eye-catching
sets, the most compelling visuals. Our brand is freedom and democracy.
We want them to follow us there.
As I said earlier, this will take time, but we will succeed.
Thank you again for allowing me to appear before you today. I will
be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Senator Sununu. Thank you, Mr. Harb.
Let me begin the questioning with Mr. Tomlinson. Even here
in the United States we have disagreement and discussion
domestically about our policies overseas, whether it is the
peace process or the current situation in Iraq or any other
issue that affects the Middle East. Does that make it more
difficult for the Board of Governors to carry out their mission
in the region, the fact that we have policy disagreements here
at home?
Mr. Tomlinson. I do not think so, Mr. Chairman. Twenty-some
years ago, I came to town as the Director of the Voice of
America in the early days of the Reagan administration at the
height of the cold war. My first observation about what we were
doing was people were trying to get the Voice of America to
speak with one voice. And I said you cannot understand American
democracy, you cannot understand what this country is all about
if you try to speak with one voice, because we have to reflect
the voices of America across the political spectrum. We can do
so in such a way as to emphasize majority opinion. We do not
have to be a slave to making sure we put forward divisions in
American society.
But we have a very strong administration. We have very
strong feelings about some of the things the administration is
doing. I think by enabling people to see how we operate that
they will see how democracy could operate in their own
countries.
I often go back to the fact that in the early 1970s or mid-
1970s, Radio Free Europe and Voice of America made the decision
to broadcast the Watergate hearings live. There was a lot of
consternation about that because people were saying why are we
exposing to the Communist world divisions in American society.
The fact of the matter is, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I
had so many people in Eastern Europe, so many from the former
Soviet Union say to me, you know, broadcasting those hearings
was absolutely essential to demonstrating to us what democracy
is really all about because, after all, democracy is about the
rule of law. Democracy is about the separation of powers.
Democracy is about concepts that you can only understand
sometimes when you see it in action. That is why, as I was
saying earlier, I am so happy we are launching Alhurra in the
year of a Presidential election.
Senator Sununu. Is there a danger that the BBG's
Government-supported broadcasting will ultimately make it more
difficult for private, independent stations to develop in the
Middle East?
Mr. Tomlinson. I do not think so because I think we
establish a model. We are very proud of the competence of our
news operation. I was so proud seeing that film because it
reflected what I have seen out there in northern Virginia. I am
so proud of this colleague here and the many people who serve
with him.
We set a standard and I think the standard is going to come
to be seen as what broadcast journalism should be, as opposed
to false reporting and sensationalism for the sake of stirring
people up. What we do is real journalism. In putting forth this
standard, I hope that when local entities begin broadcasting,
that they will go with our standard as opposed to the Al
Jazeera standard.
Mr. Pattiz. Can I get a piece of that?
Mr. Tomlinson. Why certainly.
Senator Sununu. Mr. Pattiz, please.
Mr. Pattiz. Thank you.
Mr. Tomlinson. Just so long as you agree with me.
Mr. Pattiz. I never disagree with you, Mr. Chairman, never
publicly anyway.
I cannot see any instance where the success of projects
like Radio Sawa or Alhurra or any of the other projects that we
do around the world would have any kind of a chilling effect on
local media. The fact of the matter is it should have quite the
opposite effect. As a businessman, when I go out and put a
radio program or a format or a new station or what have you out
on a market, I take a look at that market and I see what is
working and I see how many people are watching it. I see what
chunk of those people I can wind up getting. I think it creates
a more vibrant and exciting marketplace that creates more
opportunities.
We already have, in the case of Sawa, lots of imitators
that have sprung up because of the success of Radio Sawa.
Senator Sununu. If I could ask both you and Mr. Harb to
speak to that point, provide a couple of specific examples of
the changes that you have seen in other broadcasters as a
result of the product that is being produced by either Radio
Sawa or Alhurra.
Mr. Pattiz. Is that to me?
Senator Sununu. Yes. I assume each of you may know of one
or two examples.
Mr. Pattiz. Oh, sure. I can talk about Jordan and Egypt, as
it relates to Radio Sawa. It has only been a matter of weeks
with Alhurra. Even though we have seen some adjustments. Maybe
you would like to talk about Alhurra, Mouafac, and I will talk
about Sawa.
We have already seen in many places where Sawa broadcasts
music-driven radio stations that are basically following our
play lists to attract audience. We originally started talking
to the Egyptians about trying to get transmission within Egypt,
which we have not secured. When I went to Qatar and met with
Sheikh Hamad bin Jaber Al Thani who runs Al Jazeera radio and
television in the Government of Qatar and asked him for an FM
frequency, his response was ``what took you so long'' and they
gave it to us. But in Egypt, we have been asking very
aggressively for the last 3 years, and we still cannot get
transmission within Egypt. We cover Egypt, but we cover Egypt
from Cyprus.
But in Egypt, they have now put FM radio stations on the
air with formats very similar to Sawa. So we are seeing this
happening all over the place.
[The following letter containing additional information for
the record was subsequently forwarded by Mr. Tomlinson.]
Broadcasting Board of Governors,
330 Independence Ave., S.W.,
Washington, DC, June 3, 2004.
The Honorable John E. Sununu, Chairman,
Subcommittee on International Operations and Terrorism,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
United States Senate,
Washington, DC 20510.
Dear Mr. Chairman:
Thank you for your interest in the establishment of a viable
frequency for Radio Sawa audiences in Egypt. We heartily agree that
reaching Egyptian audiences is a high priority for U.S. international
broadcasting, given the largely anti-American tone of Egyptian media.
As you know, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) has been
working with the Government of Egypt for nearly three years to find an
agreeable in-country broadcast presence that would allow Radio Sawa to
be heard clearly and regularly in Cairo and other major cities. As the
Egyptian Ambassador's letter to you attests, it has been difficult to
find a solution that satisfies the legal and technical demands of both
parties. However, in recent weeks, representatives of our two
governments have had a number of productive exchanges which, we
believe, can lead to the establishment of a quality radio signal into
Cairo.
In previous discussions regarding transmission sites for Radio
Sawa, the Egyptian Government has pointed us toward Egypt's ``Media
City'' outside of Cairo, where it houses a number of government and
commercial broadcast entities. The BBG's earlier proposal to establish
an AM transmitter at this site met with technical problems, potentially
interfering with other, already established, broadcast entities at the
site. We have scaled-back our proposal to provide for the installation
of an FM transmitter in Media City that would not pose similar
interference problems. The location of an FM transmitter 32 miles
outside of the city of Cairo is perhaps not our preferred option.
However, we believe this proposal resolves the objectives of all
parties in the current environment, and we are hopeful that this
proposal will fit more satisfactorily within the parameters the
Egyptian Government has set.
Radio Sawa is an important link in our effort to reach out to young
people in the Arab world. We believe that its music programming,
together with its accurate, objective news, will help to renew our
relationship of trust and dialogue in the region. We are hopeful that
we can reach an agreement that allows us to reach out more effectively
in Cairo.
We greatly appreciate your interest in this important project. We
will be happy to keep you informed as we make progress on our
transmission capabilities in Egypt.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, Chairman.
Senator Sununu. Mr. Harb.
Mr. Harb. Yes. Since Governor Pattiz mentioned and talked
about Sawa and our affect on the radio industry in the Middle
East, I will focus more on the television industry.
I would like to start by saying Arab independent media is a
myth. There is not today an independent Arab media. They are
all funded by governments or ruling families or, in some cases,
intelligence agencies in the Middle East. So there is not an
independent media that we are preventing. However, we are
trying to affect indigenous media by trying to raise their
professional standards.
It is still a bit early to see that effect, but I have
noticed a few things in the production values. More channels
right now, including Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya and other
television channels are imitating the way we present the news.
I am not trying to simplify the question, but even Al Jazeera
anchors smile now at the end of the newscast. One of the
important things as a news director I would love to see--and I
am starting to witness some of it--is to set the agenda of
those media outlets in the morning, even if they do not imitate
or carry what we say. Based on the editorial decisions that we
make in the morning, we could influence some director of news
on another channel on what stories to carry that day. And you
see more American stories coming from the U.S. because they are
trying to compete with us.
Senator Sununu. A final question before we go to Senator
Nelson.
Mr. Pattiz, you mentioned Egypt not cooperating in helping
to provide broadcast channels for, I think, Radio Sawa in
particular. What other countries have shown that kind of
resistance to being supportive of these kinds of open media
outlets?
Mr. Pattiz. Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Lebanon.
Senator Sununu. And what countries have been most
accepting?
Mr. Pattiz. Well, almost every place else in the region. We
have FM stations throughout the region, all throughout North
Africa. We just launched a few months ago--I think it was 5 or
6 months ago--in Morocco. We are getting stunning results, and
we are up to about 8 FM stations there now.
In Amman, Jordan, a place where you would not think that a
station like Radio Sawa would be accepted quite that easily--it
is 60 percent Palestinian by birth or by heritage--we are an
instantaneous hit. Sawa has maintained its popularity, though
its news credibility has gone down a bit--which you would
expect from there because of some of the things that have gone
on in the region.
I think we are doing a really good job in Iraq now that we
have FM frequencies rather than just broadcasting on AM
frequencies from outside the area.
The Persian Gulf countries have been very, very
cooperative. I think we have nearly two dozen FM stations on
the air right now with the permission of the host governments.
Mr. Tomlinson. Mr. Chairman, may I make one parallel point?
Senator Sununu. Yes.
Mr. Tomlinson. The important thing about satellite
broadcasting is that satellite television is going to be to our
future what short wave was in the past because satellite
television goes over local censors of FM frequencies and
enables us to go directly to the people. In the same sense, we
are looking at many regions in the world where we want to
expand satellite broadcasting, and we have had great success in
recent months and recent years in terms of support from the
administration and from Congress. There is a great line from
The Right Stuff, ``no bucks, no Buck Rogers.'' In the 10 years
following the end of the cold war, our budgets for
international broadcasting were cut a very real 40 percent, and
we have reversed that. I think it is important to get this
satellite broadcasting going in this region and others, and we
thank you for your attention because I think with your
attention will come greater support for all we do.
Senator Sununu. Senator Nelson.
Senator Nelson. Mr. Chairman, I have a number of things
that I want to cover here, but first of all, I want to tell you
a story.
When I was a kid 17 years old, I was selected to represent
America to be taken with a group of adults to speak over Radio
Free Europe to the kids behind the Iron Curtain. For a 17-year-
old kid, that was quite an experience. Radio Free Europe was
broadcasting out of Munich at the time and then after the
broadcast, which in itself was a tremendous experience for a
17-year-old, they then took me to the German-Czechoslovakian
border at a little village called Tillyschanz where I saw for
the first time the attempts to enslave by seeing the strands of
barbed wire and the machine gun nest and the watchtower, the
guard tower, and the dogs and the perfectly raked soil and the
dragon's teeth, which are the concrete pyramids to keep a
vehicle from crashing the fence and so forth.
I became, at that early age and that experience and then
ultimately years later seeing the fall of the Berlin Wall,
absolutely convinced it was the right position that our
government was taking at that time. Radio Free Europe was
considered separate so that it was not an arm of the U.S.
Government.
So you know I am on your side on this.
Now, I want to ask you a little more delicate question.
With the success that you are having with the new television
station and the radio station, which I hope is true and I hope
it is going to get better and better, other than Castro's
jamming, why have we not had the success with Radio and TV
Marti? I was an original sponsor of that back in the 1980s when
I was in the House. Can you contrast the two?
Mr. Tomlinson. I think, Senator Nelson, we cannot underplay
the impact of that jamming. That jamming has been as intense in
Cuba as any place on the face of this Earth in the history of
international broadcasting.
But we have responded to that situation by, in the first
place, trying to get into Cuba cassettes of Television Marti.
We have tried to add satellite broadcasting so that if people
can develop receivers, they can get it without regard to the
jamming. We are seeking additional ways to get into Cuba. It is
very difficult because, as you well know, we cannot interfere.
We do not want to do anything to interfere with U.S.
broadcasting. So it means we have to find a means of getting
extra broadcasting into Cuba that does not send signals into
the United States.
Having said that, we also have been engaged in a great deal
of program reform of Marti in recent months. We got a new
director of Marti, Pedro Roig. He set about increasing the
relevance of programming. He set about making the program, by
the way, more news oriented because people are after
information.
We are focused now on upgrading Marti because we think that
Marti can give the same results that we have seen elsewhere if
our broadcasting is as professional as it was in Eastern
Europe. I was on the broadcasting board that ran Radio Free
Europe for better than 8 years, and I came to respect the
professionalism of that place. I came to respect, as Senator
Biden did, that there was a mission orientation and there was a
scholarship level that was brought to that operation. That was
professional, professional, professional. That is what we have
tried to do in recent months at Marti, and that is what we are
going to demand of Marti.
So we cannot stop the jamming. But we can reform
programming, make sure the programming is relevant to the
people of Cuba, and making sure it is relevant to information-
deprived people. So often those information-deprived people in
Cuba are not interested in what is going on in south Florida.
They are interested in what is going on on their own island or
what is going on in terms of Cuba and its relations with other
countries.
Senator Nelson. Is there any reason to believe that now
that you are broadcasting on TV Marti off of a satellite
geostationary over the eastern Atlantic, that you are getting
more into Cuba despite the jamming now that you are going off
the satellite?
Mr. Tomlinson. Now that we are on satellite?
Senator Nelson. Yes.
Mr. Tomlinson. No hard evidence yet, but I believe we are
going to see that evidence in the coming months as we find ways
to get receivers into Cuba because the great thing about the
satellite signals is they cannot be jammed if you have a
receiver. Now, granted, as soon as we went up with that
satellite, there was a big crackdown on little dishes
throughout Cuba. This will remain a problem because the local
community operations will be looking for those dishes. The
dishes of today are very small and, if we can get receivers in,
we will be able to get the truth in.
Senator Nelson. All right. Back to the Middle East and
Central Asia. Has your television station considered
broadcasting last week's Senate Foreign Relations Committee
hearings--there were a series on Iraq--and broadcasting them
with Arabic subtitles? I would commend it for your
consideration because between Chairman Lugar and Senator Biden,
they had--and you talked about scholarship--they had a series
of witnesses that came forth that were respected scholars and
presented a good demonstration of a democracy discussing
different ideas. I think it would offer Iraqis a better
understanding of the United States and our motives if they were
seeing it through the eyes of a hearing instead of just the
diet of what they are getting on Arab television. I wish you
would. That is something to commend. You do not need to answer.
Mr. Harb. We did.
Senator Nelson. You already have?
Mr. Harb. We covered last week the confirmation hearing for
Ambassador Negroponte and we also covered the Armed Forces
hearings where Secretary Wolfowitz was speaking and he was
asked questions. So we do cover those hearings, live with
simultaneous translation in Arabic.
Senator Nelson. Did you cover these hearings that I am
talking about?
Mr. Harb. The Armed Forces one we did.
Senator Nelson. Foreign Relations.
Mr. Tomlinson. We will check, but you are exactly right.
Mr. Harb. But we do cover those hearings.
Senator Nelson. I think the substance was in those hearings
that Chairman Lugar held, and was different than the substance
that was in the Negroponte hearing.
Mr. Tomlinson. We catch you.
Senator Nelson. OK.
Now, I would conclude with this. We have been told both
publicly and privately of what Al Jazeera is doing with the
truth. Obviously, what you all are doing is one way to try to
counter that. Do you have any reason to believe that Al Jazeera
is going to become more balanced in its approach as contrasted
with what we are being told Al Jazeera is just totally biased?
Mr. Tomlinson. It is almost worse than that, Senator. They
are willing to go with false information, willing to distort
for the purposes of stirring up the people in that region.
Senator Nelson. So what can we do?
Mr. Pattiz. Well, I think we do what we are doing. I think
we provide a different perspective that has not existed in the
region. Obviously, the very quick preliminary numbers that we
have shown you indicate that we are attracting an audience, and
I think we work to continue to build that audience and to put
on information that is different.
This is a big problem. I have had this conversation with
Senator Biden. We are 8 to 9 years late.
When the satellite revolution started taking place in the
Middle East, you had a confluence of two major events: first of
all, the availability of satellite technology which would make
it available to anybody who had a satellite dish without the
necessity of the host government giving you permission. Second,
is the population boom that is taking place where you have
large numbers of people under the age of 20 who have absolutely
no historical memory of anything that took place because they
are certainly not getting it from their media.
So we have an opportunity to provide the kind of
information that is not readily being supplied in the region,
and we have to do that. Obviously, we are going to be doing it.
Potentially between Radio Sawa and Alhurra, I think there is
just no doubt that we are going to be available to tens of
millions, and that is a tremendous opportunity for us.
Just to illustrate what it is you were talking about, I was
at Alhurra a couple of weeks ago. Mouafac and I were standing
by the monitors. We, like every other television network in the
world, are monitoring what everybody else is doing. So we have
got all the Arab TV satellite stations up on monitors. I
watched a promo for Al Jazeera news, and here is what that
promo looked like. It showed the Sheikh Yassin funeral. It
showed a Hamas demonstration having to do with the Sheikh
Yassin funeral. It showed American flags and Israeli flags
being stomped on and burned. It immediately cut to a scene of
several Hasidic Jews praying at the Western Wall, and then it
immediately cut to a scene of Israeli soldiers in conflict with
Palestinian youth. And that is the promo that they were using
for their news, which they had run over and over again probably
for several days.
So what we are doing is providing Alhurra. We are the free
one. The way we position our station is very different from the
way they position their stations. This is not going to be easy.
It is not going to be quick, but it is absolutely necessary. I
cannot think of a more cost efficient way to reach the region,
and to reach the number of people that we can reach in the
region, and have the kind of effect that we are showing with
Radio Sawa where, by a margin of 2 to 1, Sawa listeners say
they have a more positive view of the United States of America
than do non-Sawa listeners.
Mr. Tomlinson. Senator Nelson, if I could add one more
thing. I think American democracy is based on the premise that
the people are not stupid. I think that applies in societies
other than the United States. When we came out with Sawa,
people said, oh, the people of the Arab world will never accept
news from Sawa. They boycott American products. Why would they
pay any attention to the news on an American-sponsored radio
station? And maybe in those early weeks, they did not. Norm
talked about the initial impact in Jordan. When only 1 percent
of the people said they took Sawa news as credible, even though
they were listening to the station in huge numbers.
But then as they came to understand that the news was
accurate and they could turn on Sawa to find out what was
really happening in the world and they could get what was
really happening in the world quickly--if you do not have
censorship, if you do not have spin, you can get that news out
quicker--and then the figures started to grow.
Now in the latest survey, you will see that 70 percent of
the people who listen to us in Jordan say that our news is
credible and believable. I believe this is another
manifestation of the fact that, whether it is here or in the
Arab world, in the long run the people are not stupid. And if
you give them the truth, give them accurate news, in the end we
will have an impact.
Senator Sununu. Thank you, Senator Nelson.
Senator Biden, welcome.
Senator Biden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Maybe you all should broadcast in the United States.
Seventy percent of the people think the news is credible. I do
not want to offend my news folks back here, but I do not think
there is any newspaper in America--at any rate, having said
that--you would be violating Federal law, if you did,
obviously. You are not allowed to do that.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing. I
apologize for coming late.
As all three of the witnesses know, particularly the
chairman and Norm, this is sort of a hobby horse of mine, and I
want to start off by complimenting you. You guys are doing a
great job. You have gone out and hired a serious person. I am
serious. A big deal.
The thing I hope and I know that my friend, Senator Nelson,
understood, Ken, from what you said about Radio Marti and, for
example, the comparison to Radio Free Europe. There were 4
decades of institutional memory, genuine scholarship. As a
matter fact, the library at Radio Free Europe was the place
where Ph.D. candidates from Harvard and Yale and Stanford and
Penn and Georgetown and Delaware went to write their theses to
get information because it was hard.
We had a hard fight here relative to the Board of
International Broadcasters when a lot of people thought, when
the wall came down, that we only needed the Voice of America,
which is very positive. But there was this gigantic fight. It
is the only time in my entire career I ever threatened to
filibuster if, in fact, it did not allow for journalistic
independence and to keep Radio Free Europe and extend it to
Radio Free Asia and so on.
Now, you guys are a logical extension of all that, but with
almost an illogical conclusion. Norm, even I was skeptical when
I sought you out to be on the board. What made me realize it
was riding literally on a flight to Los Angeles hearing
Westwood One again and the interviews with the rock stars. I am
not joking. I really mean it. That package you came up with and
sold is essentially a less sophisticated version of what you
are doing now. As you said to me, why is the nation which
basically invented radio and how to use it and to market it,
why the heck were we behind the 8-ball? You have exceeded, I
must tell you, my expectations in terms of the rapidity with
which all of you have done this.
But I suggest to the chairman--and I know how busy we all
are, but if you get a chance, Mr. Chairman, to go out to
Alhurra to the studio in Springfield, Virginia, and spend, as I
did and others have--I guess I was only there a couple hours.
It is breathtaking. It is breathtaking. First of all, because
of your leadership and the leadership of this committee and the
Senate and the House, we were able to give them enough money,
though most people did not think it was enough--and not enough
time. But it amazed me how quickly you got that studio up and
running. Guys like me spend a fair amount of time in studios
doing interviews around this town and around this country. I
have not seen anything like it. NBC, CBS, CNN. I guess, in
part, it is because everything is brand new, but the way you
set it up, it is absolutely the state-of-the-art, No. 1.
No. 2, what everybody should know is you went out and hired
serious people like your colleague from other endeavors. Is
there anybody from Al Jazeera you hired?
Mr. Harb. Yes.
Senator Biden. How many people do you have roughly?
Mr. Harb. Four or five.
Senator Biden. How about any other Arab television network?
Mr. Harb. We have managed to recruit from most leading
satellite channels.
Senator Biden. And you see their anchors. I mean it. They
have every vestige of what has caused American television
stations to succeed. They are very attractive anchors, men and
women. You guys did it as if you were setting up a new CBS, if
it was CBK or something, a new network here. It is amazing.
But the most important thing I think is you did what was
the key to success in the independent radio stations in the
1950s. You hired indigenous people. Did you all go into this in
your testimony about not only indigenous people, you hired here
at the ``network headquarters''? My phrase. I know it is not a
network headquarters but at headquarters. Tell me about what is
in the field. Do you have reporters in the field?
Mr. Harb. Yes, we do.
Senator Biden. By field I mean, Baghdad, Damascus,
wherever.
Mr. Harb. Yes, sir, we do have reports based from northern
Iraq to even someone on the outskirts of Fallujah right now
reporting for us. We have people from Najaf, Iraqi reporters.
We have people in----
Senator Biden. And they have cameras?
Mr. Harb. They have cameras. They report via camera, via
satellite link, or sometimes if it is breaking news, they call
us over the phone all from the Middle East.
Mr. Pattiz. When you put the news staff of Radio Sawa and
the news staff of Alhurra together, we have one of the largest,
if not the largest, Arabic language news gathering
organizations in the world.
Senator Biden. Tell me when my time is up, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Sununu. Oh, you are not even close.
Senator Biden. Let us talk about radio for a second.
Surveys in Morocco said 88 percent of the people in Casablanca
and Rabat listen to Radio Sawa. Is there any American radio
station with any numbers like that? And do not tell me Westwood
One.
Mr. Pattiz. Maybe if you included every single Westwood One
program that we have on NBC, CBS, and CNN, all of which are our
networks. But no.
Senator Biden. All kidding aside.
Mr. Pattiz. No, it is not possible.
Senator Biden. It is not, is it?
Mr. Pattiz. No, it really is not.
Senator Biden. Why is it not possible? It is important, I
think, for people to understand and for me to understand why it
is possible there and not here. When I say this, Norm, people
look at me and they do not believe. They know American radio. I
say it to American broadcasters, American news people, and I
say 88 percent, and they say, now, wait a minute. That is not
possible. There is not a single TV or radio station that has 88
percent and few have even 88 percent in their own little
market. But why?
Mr. Pattiz. Well, first of all, there are 10,000 commercial
radio stations here in the United States. I mean when I went
over there, I could feel it. I could just smell it. There was a
hole big enough to drive a fleet of Mack trucks through. The
nature of radio over there is different than the case with
television. They have a very vibrant television market over
there, but in radio it is a vast wasteland. It is government-
controlled. It is mostly news and information. It is boring. It
is government radio.
Senator Biden. That is the point I want you to make. That
is an important point for the credibility of what we are doing
and why this was a good idea.
The second question about radio. Is there an ability to
expand the market? Is there another Sawa in the making or is
Sawa sufficient? In other words, does it make sense for us to
think about multiplying the radio piece or is that sufficient
like Radio Free Europe was sufficient with Radio Liberty. Do
you understand what I am trying to say?
Mr. Pattiz. Yes, absolutely, Senator. My personal opinion?
Senator Biden. Yes.
Mr. Pattiz. I think now with the launch of Alhurra
television, that what we have is a vehicle that is youth
oriented, that reaches very effectively on radio an audience
that is 30 and under and does it very effectively. And now we
have a television outlet that is mass appeal that does not have
a particular target audience by formats because television is
not a medium of formats. It is a medium of programs. So in
television we can target particular audiences based upon the
individual programs that we put on the air. I think,
considering the resources that we have and the needs that we
have, that those services in the Middle East will get the job
done.
As we become more successful and create more imitators and
broaden the market and create competition and create more
successful indigenous broadcasters and our audience share as a
function of that goes down, that is when we will have to become
more like the narrowcasters that exist in America today because
there are no broadcasters in America. Everybody is a
narrowcaster and everybody talks about Fox News and CNN.
Senator Biden. Explain what you mean by narrowcaster
because people listening will not know what that means.
Mr. Pattiz. The use of the word ``broad,'' refers to
reaching a huge percentage of people. It was not unusual for a
television network to have a 30 share. Well, it is very unusual
for a television network to have a 30 share today. When you
talk about the raw numbers for somebody like a Fox or an CNN or
an MSNBC, in prime time Fox reaches an average audience of
about 2.5 million people. CNN reaches an average audience of
about 1.5 million people.
Senator Biden. Out of a total of 300 million people.
Mr. Pattiz. Yes, the population of the United States.
So can you have impact without having to reach those kinds
of numbers? Yes, you can. But when we become more successful
and create bigger and more robust markets, then we may have to
look at, in order to maintain our effectiveness, putting on
different formats.
When I started in the radio business, there were a half a
dozen formats. That was 30 years ago. I think I had just had a
conversation with Marconi at the time. But there were five or
six different formats. There was classical music and there was
news radio and there were talk radio stations. There was
country music. There was rock and roll music. Well, today there
are probably 12 different incarnations of rock and roll or
contemporary music. So everything continues to get narrower and
narrower and narrower.
And as a function of it getting narrower, Senator, rather
than try to form public opinion, we tend more to find out what
that opinion is and pander to it. That is what is going on in
the Middle East.
Senator Biden. Two quick questions. I would have assumed
that as a consequence of the success of either Sawa or the
television station, if the result was that we generated a lot
of imitators, I would have thought that that in and of itself
would be a measure of success. In other words, I am assuming
that to the extent that you generate imitators, it must mean
there is something that the guard has been let down a little
bit in these countries in terms of censorship. I may be wrong
about this. I really do not know the answer. Is that likely to
be the way things develop, or is it likely that there will be a
development that there are more Al Jazeeras with narrower focus
that are virtually or vehemently anti-American?
Mr. Harb. Yes, I agree with you, Senator, that it is one of
the ways to measure success when people start imitating what we
do. As I said in my presentation before, television is a ``me
too'' medium, whereby if you have a success story, other
channels will start to imitate you. If we do what we intend to
do, to be a source of accurate information, lively debate, and
people start to realize that this is something that is missing
from other channels, the other channels will begin to compete
with us.
Senator Biden. I am hoping that because I watched, when I
was out at Alhurra, a debate with four leading Arab voices. One
was I think the guy who does the program. It was not onsite.
The guy who does the program was an Egyptian and then there
were three other people from the region arguing current
affairs. It was kind of like a multiple Meet the Press but it
was all with major people that other people knew and discussing
issues. I thought to myself that must be pretty unique in the
region.
There was one show you showed me that there is a well-
known--I think he was Egyptian--commentator who ran a show that
was really quite provocative, as it was translated to me, about
things like whether or not democracy in Egypt was preferable.
Mr. Harb. The concept of debate shows has reached the Arab
world today, but the parameters and the topics allowed to be
discussed on these debate shows is what we are trying to
expand. Right now the freedom of speech is defined in the Arab
media by attacking the United States and Israel. Outside these
two parameters people are not venturing yet to talk about
unemployment and education in the Middle East. These are some
of the issues that we at Alhurra try to expand and make sure
our audiences are not only aware of what is going on in the
region, but we want them to be part of the global debate.
Senator Biden. Last question. The numbers with Sawa, as
well as the numbers at Alhurra, are different from country to
country. For example, I gave you the 88 percent figure for Sawa
in Morocco, but that figure is 11 percent in Egypt and that
figure is 42 percent in Kuwait. I assume if we had time--and we
do not--to go through the numbers of the listenership and the
early judgments about Alhurra, you would see that kind of
fluctuation among countries. Or would you? Because they have a
satellite, you do not have that fluctuation?
Mr. Pattiz. You are absolutely right on that, Senator.
Because the satellite covers all 22 countries of the region, it
is really dependent upon the distribution of satellite dishes
and their availability to pull down that signal. In the case of
Radio Sawa, for instance, the reason why the number in Egypt is
much lower than the number in other places is because we have
no distribution inside Egypt. We are broadcasting to Egypt from
Cyprus on an AM frequency, where in the other places we are
predominantly on the FM band, and that is because of the
inability to get the Egyptians to give us distribution within
the country.
Senator Biden. Well, Mr. Chairman, I am glad that you have
taken on this hearing. Quite frankly, I think this public
diplomacy--I really mean this--is the sort of uncharted,
untested element of our foreign policy that has the potential
for the greatest bang for the buck. It is like that phrase
attributed to G.K. Chesterton. He said it is not that, ``The
Christian idea has not been tried and found wanting, it has
been found difficult and left untried.'' Well, I think that is
where we are here. It is not that we have tried this and it is
found wanting. I think it has been found difficult and left
untried.
I would like to come back and try to convince you, Mr.
Chairman. I had put together with the help of the board, at the
request of the President of the United States actually, a
fairly comprehensive strategy for this that would cost us about
a half a billion dollars over 5 years, $250 million in
infrastructure over 5 years and $250 million in operating
costs. I would really like to talk with you and others about
it.
But I really do think it has been found difficult and left
untried. You guys made a great start. Thank you and thank you
for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Sununu. Thank you, Senator Biden. I certainly look
forward to taking a look at that proposal and to working with
you on incorporating some of its ideas to the BBG in our public
diplomacy effort.
I have just a couple questions before we move to our second
panel. To followup on one of Senator Biden's questions, Mr.
Harb, where are you having the most difficulty in attracting
viewers? Are there any countries where the viewership, the
uptake rate just is not what you would expect, and why would
that be?
Mr. Harb. You are referring to radio or television, Mr.
Chairman?
Senator Sununu. Alhurra.
Mr. Harb. Because we are delivered via satellite, it is not
about difficulty. It is just about the penetration of satellite
television in a given country. In places like Sudan or probably
Yemen and upper Egypt, people do not have satellite channels.
Senator Sununu. But for an area of a given penetration, are
you suggesting that the viewership rates are similar? My
question was, are there particular countries where perhaps the
incumbent or indigenous station is so strong or so powerful
that you are not attracting viewers or where there are cultural
issues?
Mr. Harb. I see a trend that everywhere satellite is very
common in a country, that we have similar numbers. We expected
that in Lebanon we would not have good numbers because
indigenous channels are very advanced, but it happens to be it
is one of the top markets that we have right now.
I believe in Egypt there may be fewer viewers because
people do not have a lot of satellite dishes and there is some
sort of, I would call, cultural bias. So if you rate the
audience in Egypt, most of them would say to you they watch the
Egyptian channels. One of the areas that we need to do more
research on is Egypt and North Africa.
Senator Sununu. Well, thank you. I want to wish you
continued success. I look forward to revisiting some of the
questions and issues that we touched on with our first panel. I
hope you will be available for any followup information that we
want to have you submit for the record.
At this time I will call the next panel up, but I do want
to take a 5-minute recess before we begin promptly with the
second panel at 4:05.
[Recess.]
Senator Sununu. The subcommittee will come to order with
our second panel.
Welcome to each of you. I ask that as we move across the
panel, we will provide testimony--we will just go across the
panel from left to right--that you, as briefly as possible,
summarize your written testimony so that we can leave as much
time as possible for questions.
On our second panel is Jess Ford from the General
Accounting Office; Dr. Shibley Telhami of the University of
Maryland; the Honorable William Rugh of Georgetown University;
and Dr. Edmund Ghareeb of American University here in
Washington. We will begin with Mr. Rugh. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM A. RUGH, ASSOCIATE, INSTITUTE FOR THE
STUDY OF DIPLOMACY, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Ambassador Rugh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I
am honored to be invited to testify on this very important
subject. I was a public diplomacy official with the U.S.
Information Agency for 30 years and I have followed public
diplomacy ever since. This is a vital issue, especially today
in light of the tension between America and the Arab world.
I would like, Mr. Chairman, to report on some Arab reaction
that I have heard to the broadcasts by Radio Sawa and Alhurra
television, but first, if I may, I would like to put that in
context by talking about the competitive marketplace that
currently exists in Arab broadcasting. The context is this in
my view briefly.
A revolution in Arab television has taken place over the
past decade. Prior to 1991, nearly all Arab radio and
television was owned and controlled by Arab governments in each
country. The content of the broadcast was supportive of the
government completely. It was unimaginative and boring. Media
laws prohibited any criticism of the head of state, of
religion, or of anything undermining public order, and self-
censorship added to that.
But during the 1990s, several private Arab satellite
channels were established based in Europe and they broadcast
all over the Arab world. They brought a new approach to Arab
television. Their news coverage was much broader, bringing live
reports from Israel, Afghanistan, and elsewhere for the first
time. They introduced lively discussion programs that broke
taboos. Their talk shows brought together religious
fundamentalists and extremists, discussed the role of women,
criticized governments. For example, I watched Al Jazeera with
a call-in show that featured a Saudi prince who was asked by a
person on the other end of the phone line in Riyadh about Saudi
corruption. That was on Al Jazeera. It was getting into a
political discussion by Al Jazeera which had never been done
before by Arab television. Al Jazeera broke so many taboos that
virtually every Arab government protested and took action
against it.
But others followed. Hizbollah's Al Manar television was
stridently anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian, but it was very
popular.
Americans tend to regard Al Jazeera as anti-American, as
you have heard in the previous panel, and to some extent that
is true. But some of the anti-American content that we see as
Americans in Al Jazeera is really following the street. It is a
market-driven medium, as are most of the new satellite
stations, and Al Jazeera is not the only one. And also we have
to be aware that there is a cultural bias that is found in
every country. For example, American television will give
priority in its news broadcasts to Americans dying in Iraq
while Arab television will give priority to Arabs dying in
Iraq.
Today Arab audiences, Mr. Chairman, can choose from dozens
of television channels. Typically viewers in any country only
watch about six or seven of them regularly. And so Arab viewers
today might typically watch Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya, for
example, for all news. They might turn to Middle East
Broadcasting and Orbit for entertainment, and I might emphasize
that the entertainment includes a lot of American content. They
buy Hollywood films. They buy American television serials and
programs. They might watch Al Manar if they want to watch a
strongly pro-Palestinian reporting. And they probably watch
their own government television channel for local news. So the
market in the Arab world for television is very tight and the
choices are broad for every Arab television viewer.
Let me now turn briefly, Mr. Chairman, to Radio Sawa and
Alhurra, and what I want to report to you is not a scientific,
quantitative survey but reaction that I have heard from many
Arabs that I have talked to who watch Alhurra regularly and who
listen to Radio Sawa regularly. I am not going to quote any of
the commentary from Arabs who are normally hostile to America.
The comments that I will give you are all from Arabs who are
basically friendly to America and want the United States to do
well.
First of all, Radio Sawa. I have to emphasize in the
beginning of this analysis that Radio Sawa and Alhurra are
considered U.S. Government broadcasting stations. The so-called
firewall that the Broadcasting Board of Governors talks about
is not recognized and not appreciated. So that is the basis
from which we operate.
Now, Radio Sawa's selection of news reinforces this
impression that it is a U.S. Government station. I must say I
was a skeptic at the beginning of its launch last year, but it
seems to be popular with many young people, though young people
who can hear it. They like its music. But the Arab adults that
I have spoken with--and I have just recently returned from two
trips to the Middle East--tell me that they prefer to listen to
BBC Arabic and that they miss the Voice of America's Arabic
program because it was better news, better coverage, and a
broader program.
Another issue for Radio Sawa is audibility. The Voice of
America had a problem with its signal. It had a problem of
audibility because it was primarily on short wave and on medium
wave from Rhodes, and Radio Sawa has done a bit better because
it is more audible in more places, but it is still not being
heard in many parts of the Arab world.
In conclusion, Radio Sawa has had some impact, but its
impact with important policymaker audiences, that is, adults,
is very limited.
Alhurra television, however, has had a much more difficult
time penetrating the Arab broadcast market because it is so
highly saturated with Arab satellite television channels that
Arab viewers find very interesting. Like Radio Sawa, it is
considered a government broadcaster. First impressions are
important and the inaugural interview with President Bush on
Alhurra made it look from the start like any of the old-time,
old-style Arab government-owned channels because that is what
they do. Moreover, the choice of news and features seem to Arab
viewers to be dictated by U.S. Government preferences. Viewers
see a great deal of emphasis on Israel, on terrorism, rather
than on the plight of the Palestinians and the Iraqi people.
The promo that Mr. Pattiz mentioned in the previous panel
focusing on other issues are exactly what the market wants, and
this is what they are seeing from Alhurra. Therefore, it is not
appealing.
Moreover, regular viewers have told me that the channel
seems to lack a pan-Arab character because most of the
presenters--and this is impressions again--seem to viewers to
be Lebanese Christians. They would like to see more presenters
from the gulf and elsewhere.
Arab viewers, Mr. Chairman, who are pro-American tell me
they have been disappointed in the programming because they
expected a lot more. They say it is not as effective in news
gathering in the Middle East as they thought it would be. For
example, Al Jazeera is reporting from inside Fallujah and
Alhurra is not even though the United States is the occupying
power in Iraq and they expected Alhurra to have an advantage.
That may be unfair but that was the expectation.
They say Alhurra is disappointing because it is not
aggressively reporting on Arab corruption and lack of democracy
which they expected it to do because President Bush has focused
publicly on these issues and he has named specific Arab
countries and shortcomings in those countries in public
statements. But Arab viewers of Alhurra say that when Alhurra,
for example, interviewed the Tunisian Foreign Minister
recently, the Alhurra reporter complied with the Tunisian
demand that human rights violations in Tunisia not be raised.
So they understand and the word is getting out that Alhurra is
just like any other government broadcasting station in the
Middle East. It stays away from internal Arab problems.
They also say they are disappointed that Alhurra--and this
is surprising--has not done better than Al Jazeera and other
Arab channels in reporting news about the United States. For
example, in one case Al Jazeera reported on President Bush live
while Alhurra did not. So with the friends of ours in the Arab
world, Alhurra has been a disappointment, has not met their
expectations.
Mr. Chairman, I will conclude by making some
recommendations if I may.
I would say that Radio Sawa needs to improve its reach and
its audibility, and it needs to focus more on what important
adult audiences want to hear from a U.S. Government radio
station. If we want to support American public diplomacy, we
need to reach movers and shakers. We need to reach
policymakers, not just youth. It would do well to broaden its
offerings along the lines of the old VOA Arabic Service which
had a good program, but unfortunately had signal problems.
As for Alhurra, quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, because the
market is already full of channels that Arab audiences like, I
do not expect that it will succeed in reaching important
audiences. It is, of course, too early to be sure about that,
but the beginning is not at all promising. Since money for
public diplomacy is scarce, I would prefer to spend the money
we spend on Alhurra in increasing our cadre of professionals
who have Arabic language skills who can explain America and its
policies on the existing Arab television channels, and this is
possible. I have appeared many times on Al Jazeera myself in
Arabic explaining America and its policies, and it is possible
to continue to do that. We need to do much more of that.
Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that since the 9/11 terrorists
used American planes to kill Americans, we should be able to
use Arab media to inform and educate Arab audiences.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Rugh follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. William A. Rugh
I would like to make some comments on Radio Sawa and al Hurra
television as seen by Arab audiences. These comments are based on
recent conversations and observations and a study of the history of
Arab broadcasting. First I will describe the Arab broadcasting context
into which Radio al Sawa and al Hurra television were introduced, and
then I will cite some Arab reactions to both of them.
THE ARAB BROADCASTING CONTEXT
Almost all radio and television systems in the Arab world developed
under the direct ownership and control of Arab governments. While there
were some private Arab newspapers, radio and TV were government
operations. Most Arab broadcasting laws prohibited criticism of the
head of state, defamation of religion, or undermining public order.
Additional taboos were observed by broadcast editors based on local
custom and political circumstances. Arab broadcast audiences therefore
had access only to news and commentary officially approved by their
respective governments, unless they could tune in to the Voice of
America, BBC, Radio Monte Carlo or CNN. The content of Arab radio and
television broadcasts was generally pretty unimaginative and boring
because there was no real competition in Arabic. This situation
prevailed throughout the Arab world until the early 1990s.
Then a revolution in television broadcasting occurred, as private
Arab satellite television channels were established in Europe that
transmitted programs in Arabic to all Arab countries. Why did this
happen? In 1991, when CNN provided 24/7 coverage of Desert Storm, Arabs
saw the possibility of instantaneous live coverage of dramatic regional
events, that satellite technology and cheaper satellite receiving
dishes had made possible. But they regarded the CNN broadcasts as
American in news selection and commentary, and Arab entrepreneurs began
to think about the possibility of satellite television in Arabic and
edited from an Arab point of view. Wealthy private investors from Saudi
Arabia, and then others, started Arab satellite television stations
whose programs were intended for a pan-Arab market.
The new satellite television channels broadcast news, public
affairs programs and commentary, along with other content including
entertainment, much of it Hollywood movies or programs purchased from
American commercial television. But there were two aspects of these new
channels that made their impact on Arab broadcasting revolutionary. One
was that they began to cover important regional news events more
professionally and more effectively, having correspondents on the scene
reporting live, and even entering previously off-limits areas like
Israel to get the news. The second innovation was to present
discussions of sensitive topics from different points of view that
broke previous taboos.
The pioneer in these innovations was al Jazeera Television, based
in Qatar. Al Jazeera was and is financed by the government of Qatar,
but it is radically different from the traditional government-
controlled television channels that dominated the Arab world until
1991. The government of Qatar allowed al Jazeera to cover news in
Israel and Afghanistan that had never before been covered by Arab TV
channels, and it allowed al Jazeera to broadcast talk shows in which
views were expressed that had never before been heard on Arab
television, because the channels had been so tightly controlled by
their respective governments. Al Jazeera carried talk shows on which
Islamic fundamentalists debated with secularists, feminists argued for
more women's rights, and opposition political spokesmen criticized
specific governments by name. These talk shows pleased audiences but
they angered officials in other Arab countries, and at one time or
another, virtually every Arab government has protested al Jazeera and
taken action against it, including expelling its correspondents. Some
taboos still existed but many were broken. The Government of Qatar
seems to have taken pride in allowing al Jazeera to poke other Arab
governments in the eye, perhaps to attract attention to this tiny
country. Whatever the reason, other Arab satellite channels, even the
ones developed by other governments such as Abu Dhabi, have to some
extent imitated al Jazeera by improving their regional news coverage
and making their public affairs programming more lively and
interesting.
The news and public affairs programs on these channels seem to many
Westerners to have a strong anti-American bias. Criticism of American
policy is frequently expressed on talk shows in al Jazeera and other
channels, and news reports are edited differently from news reports on
American TV, often showing American actions in a negative light. Some
of this is deliberately anti-American editing, especially for example
on Hizbollah's al Manar channel. But much of what appears to Americans
as anti-American is primarily motivated by the desire of editors at al
Jazeera and other channels to satisfy the Arab market. There is today
widespread criticism in the Arab world of American policy in the Middle
East, and Arab television reflects that. Moreover, there is a cultural
bias in Arab television, just as there is a cultural bias for example
in American television, or British television. Thus when one American
is killed in Iraq, that is priority news in U.S. television but not
necessarily on Arab television. Conversely, when a Palestinian civilian
is killed in the West Bank, that usually is priority news on Arab
television but not necessarily here.
Today the Arab television viewer with a satellite dish has a choice
of dozens of channels. But like most TV viewers around the world, the
Arab television viewer tends to watch, at most, only six or seven of
them in a given week. Typically an avid television viewer might watch
al Jazeera, al Arabiya or Arab News Network for round-the clock
coverage of news and public affairs; Middle East Broadcasting, Orbit,
Arab Radio and Television or Lebanese Broadcasting Company
International for entertainment including Western and Arab programs;
the Hizbollah channel al Manar for aggressive pro-Palestinian
commentary and news; plus the local TV channel for local news. There
are many choices.
RADIO SAWA AND AL HURRA TELEVISION
This is the environment into which Radio Sawa and al Hurra
television have been introduced. What has been the impact? I will
report some Arab perceptions, since in the world of ideas, perceptions
are often as important as reality. These comments are based on
anecdotal information, not a formal survey.
Radio Sawa
Young audiences who are able to hear Radio Sawa seem to like its
mix of Arabic and Western music, and it has achieved some popularity
just as Radio Monte Carlo had decades earlier. But Arab adults I have
spoken with told me that they much prefer BBC Arabic Radio, because BBC
carries much more interesting and useful news about the region and the
world, and they regard BBC as relatively objective. Some of the people
who used to listen to the Voice of America in Arabic now listen to BBC
instead of Radio Sawa.
Secondly, audibility is important. The Voice of America Arabic
Service, which has been replaced by Radio Sawa, was limited in its
effectiveness because it was not audible on medium wave throughout the
area. BBC and Radio Monte Carlo had stronger medium wave signals so
they were more successful. Now Radio Sawa has some new transmitter
access and this has helped it considerably. But in important countries
where it is not audible, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Radio Sawa too
is ineffective.
Third, and importantly, Radio Sawa is regarded as a U.S. Government
sponsored station. Arab listeners are experienced in detecting who is
behind a given broadcaster, and they sensed that the news and public
affairs programs were sponsored by the American government. The
``firewall'' that the Broadcasting Board of Governors speaks of,
separating Radio Sawa from State Department policy, was not seen or
appreciated by Arab listeners. They simply accepted Radio Sawa as
another government radio station.
Radio Sawa has some potential, but rather than focusing on
entertainment that Arab audiences can get elsewhere, I believe it
should focus on providing the kind of news and public affairs programs
that Arab audiences, including adults, want. Audience surveys should
not only measure audience share but compare Radio Sawa against other
radio stations at moments in which there is an important news event,
such as the finding of Saddam Hussain or a Presidential news
conference. If Radio Sawa can increase its coverage of the listening
area, and take advantage of the fact that it is regarded as a U.S.
Government station by broadcasting more about American policies in the
region and the American public's views of those policies, it should
have a greater impact.
Al Hurra Television
Al Hurra Television has had a much more difficult time penetrating
the Arab market than Radio Sawa, because the radio market was not very
competitive, while the Arab television market was highly saturated with
channels that Arab audiences found interesting.
First, like Radio Sawa, al Hurra was assumed to be a U.S.
Government broadcaster. The ``firewall'' was not recognized. This
assumption was confirmed by Arab viewers in several ways. The content
and style of the news gave the impression that it was not an Arab
channel but American. Subjects that were chosen, and the time devoted
to them in newscasts, seemed determined from an American point of view
rather than an Arab perspective. More attention was paid to Americans
in the news than to Arabs in the news. Language also did not match that
of most Arab television stations; for example Palestinian suicide
bombers were not referred to as ``martyrs.'' Most importantly, the
first impression viewers got of al Hurra--and first impressions are
important--was the inaugural interview with President Bush. Arab
government-owned television stations have always given prominence to
statements by their heads of state, and the Bush interview seemed to
stamp al Hurra as just one more government-owned channel.
Secondly, and relatedly, a common Arab reaction that I have heard
is disappointment that al Hurra is not effective as a newsgathering
agency in the Middle East. Arab viewers seeking news about what is
happening inside Falluja today turn to al Jazeera and al Arabiya,
because al Hurra is not providing reporting as good as theirs. Arab
viewers assumed that since the United States is the occupying power in
Iraq, and al Hurra is the American government's television channel, al
Hurra should be in the best position of any broadcaster to have the
best and quickest access to news events in Iraq, but it does not. Al
Hurra's potential advantage in this competitive market has been lost.
More generally, Arab viewers tell me they are surprised that al
Hurra does not cover in more depth stories related to the Middle East
that are important to Arab viewers. They say that often al Hurra gives
a story on the Middle East short shrift and turns to a cooking show
while the other Arab channels continue detailed coverage.
Third, another common reaction that I have heard from Arab viewers
of al Hurra was disappointment that it has been weak in its coverage of
the American domestic scene. Arab viewers have become accustomed to
watching the U.S.-based correspondents of al Jazeera, al Arabiya, Abu
Dhabi and other Arab television channels covering developments in the
United States, often with live reports, in Arabic. Arab viewers who
understand English also have access to ABC, CBS and NBC news and
current events. They expected al Hurra to cover the U.S. domestic scene
much better, more comprehensively and more professionally than anything
they had seen before, but al Hurra seemed weak by comparison. For
example, they turned to al Jazeera for a recent live broadcast by
President Bush because al Hurra did not cover it live.
Fourth, another disappointment expressed by Arab viewers is that
they expected al Hurra to be aggressively supporting democracy and
human rights, but they say it has failed to live up to that
expectation. The context is important here. Many Arab viewers have been
critical of their own governments for failure to move in the direction
of democratization, an end to corruption, or to protect the human
rights of their citizens. The revolution that has taken place in Arab
television broadcasting has opened up debate on many issues that were
previously taboo, but there are still some taboos relating to internal
domestic politics that remain. For example, when Saad al Din Ibrahim
went to jail in Egypt, Egyptian media did not rally to his defense.
Other human rights activists in other Arab countries are in jail or
being mistreated but the Arab media are not raising their cases. Since
President Bush has been calling for democratization and an end to
corruption in the Arab world and he has specifically mentioned Arab
governments that should undertake reforms, Arab audiences hoped and
expected that al Hurra would amplify this policy and focus on domestic
reforms that are needed in Arab countries.
Some Arab viewers believe that al Hurra avoids taking up Arab
domestic reform cases out of deference to Arab governments, and refuses
to raise sensitive domestic issues. For example, when Tunisian
President Ben Au was in Washington recently, it is widely believed that
al Hurra accepted the Tunisian demand that in an interview with the
Tunisian Foreign Minister, the question of Tunisia's human rights
abuses not be included. Al Hurra therefore looks like any other
government-owned channel that respects Arab taboos.
Finally, Arab regular viewers of al Hurra tell me that the tone and
style of the broadcasts lack pan-Arab balance. They assume from the
names and accents of the presenters that most of them are Lebanese
Christians, and they wonder about the absence of broadcast
professionals from the Gulf, for example. Arab viewers are always
sensitive to identification of the individuals by nationality, tribe
and religion, so this is an important factor in creating the al Hurra
image.
In conclusion, Radio Sawa may have some potential if it improves
its content, and tries some of the effective programming that VOA
Arabic used over the years. However, as for al Hurra, it has entered a
very competitive market and the first impression that it has made has
disappointed many viewers. It was to be expected that those implacably
hostile to America would criticize al Hurra no matter what it did, but
it is telling that the specific comments mentioned here have come
essentially from America's friends in the region who want us to succeed
and be understood. My conclusion is that while it is still too early to
be sure, early indications are that al Hurra cannot succeed in this
very competitive market.
Something urgently needs to be done to help bridge the great gap
between American and Arab perceptions. We are in a serious war of
ideas. My recommendation is that it would be more cost-effective to
devote the funds used for television broadcasting to other badly needed
public diplomacy programs. The most effective public diplomacy for Arab
audiences involves dialogue by Americans willing to listen and able to
explain the United States and its policies. Instead of trying to manage
our own television channel, we should do more to gain access to the
existing Arab channels, and we should increase the number of trained
professional officers with Arabic language capabilities who can explain
America and its policies using Arab media. The 9/11 terrorists used our
planes to kill our people. We should be able to use Arab media to
inform and educate Arab audiences.
Senator Sununu. Thank you, Mr. Rugh.
Dr. Telhami, welcome.
STATEMENT OF PROFESSOR SHIBLEY TELHAMI, ANWAR SADAT PROFESSOR
OF PEACE, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Dr. Telhami. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I am honored to testify
before this committee again.
I will focus only on satellite television in my testimony.
I will make five short points. What I hope to do with these
points is really put this in a broader perspective. I think we
have focused so much on Alhurra and what it can do and we are
sort of losing sight of the bigger picture.
The first point that I want to make is that the prevalent
resentment of American foreign policy, whether it is in the
Middle East or elsewhere around the world, is of course
influenced by the media. The media plays a role, but by and
large, it is not shaped by this media. Frankly, there is no Al
Jazeera television in Europe and Latin America and Africa and
Asia. We have strong anti-Americanism. There are many people in
the Middle East that do not have satellite television. They
express just as much anti-Americanism as those who do.
We have seen resentment toward America go down very rapidly
in 4 or 5 years, and frankly even before this administration
came to office, largely in relation to events on the Arab-
Israeli issue, not to media coverage. Just in the spring of
2000, when people were optimistic about peace in the Middle
East, over 60 percent of Saudis, according to the State
Department, expressed confidence in the United States of
America. That dropped rapidly in the fall before our elections,
as soon as the negotiations collapsed, and continued to drop
into the spring and certainly accelerated after 9/11 and the
war on terrorism, reaching the single digits in the past year.
So I think we have to put this, first of all, in
perspective. This is not a media-driven phenomenon. The media
certainly is a player that we have to take seriously, but at
the heart of it, it is something bigger that we have got to
address and we cannot ignore that and sort of pin the
responsibility on the media as if that is the answer to all our
problems in the region and around the world.
Second, I think what Ambassador Rugh pointed out very
eloquently is that to the extent that there is a change in the
Middle Eastern media in the past decade, it is that we have
this market-driven phenomenon. By market-driven phenomenon, we
do not mean necessarily that these stations are not owned by a
government, as in the case of Al Jazeera, but that they have a
different logic because of the technological reach. Because of
the commonality of Arabic as a language across the Arab world,
the market now is defined as the 300 million Arabs. The
prototype for these stations is the Arab, not the Qatari or the
Yemeni or the Algerian. But they are trying to reach the
largest possible market share among all Arabs, and therefore,
the prototype consumer is the Arab. Therefore, by definition,
they are trying to appeal to the tastes and fashions of that
consumer.
We see that actually very interestingly in the case of Al
Jazeera and how it is reporting change. People forget, for
example, that in the late 1990s, only 5 years ago, Al Jazeera
was being accused in the Arab world of being pro-American, pro-
Israeli. Even some accused it, ``of being a Zionist agent.''
The reason why they were doing that was that Al Jazeera was a
pioneer in putting on the screen Israeli representatives on a
regular basis, the Israeli point of view, somebody in the
Knesset, sometimes even putting live the debate in the Knesset.
And Arabs were watching and the reason they were watching is
they believed Arab-Israeli peace was coming. It was around the
corner. Most of them knew little about Israel. They did not
know what the Israelis were like. Al Jazeera was bringing
Israel to the homes of Riyadh and Rabat in ways that no one
else there could do, and for that reason they were accused of
being pro-Israeli.
Well, what happened is, the negotiations collapsed. You
have a lot of bloodshed. The story was blood and war, and
people wanted to see it. In fact, when Al Jazeera came under
pressure before the war last year to tone down its coverage of
the Palestinian areas, my surveys in the Middle East show that
Al Manar gained on it and became No. 1 news on the Arab-Israeli
issue. Al Manar is Hizbollah's television in places like
Jordan. So, clearly, it is a market-driven phenomenon. We have
to understand that they are trying to cater to the market.
Third, I am an observer of this media as a scholar. I have
been watching it for a long time. I also appear on it. If I
look at it in historical perspective, I do not think we have
ever seen, frankly, a foreign media that has given more direct
and live coverage of American officials than the Arab satellite
media. And Mr. Rugh, I think you certainly played a role in the
media before historically. You probably could put a perspective
on it, but I have never seen it on this scale, in part because
people are obsessed certainly with the United States. There are
always policies related to Iraq, the Arab-Israeli issue, news
conferences live, translated live in Arabic, by the President,
by the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, news
conferences by generals in the region. Clearly, there is that
coverage. Now, you can say the commentary is not that good, and
that is probably true, but the coverage is there.
But the coverage itself is undermined less by the
discussion afterwards and more by the fact that appearance by
American officials often reinforces people's biases because
American officials speak with our own paradigm, our own world
view and often in the back of our minds, we are speaking to our
own constituency at home, to Congress, to our media, how we are
going to be covered, and in that sense, in a way reinforces the
fears of people in the region rather than alter the perception.
And I think we have to become aware of that more often.
Fourth, I think it is fair to say in times of tragedy and
war, in times of pain, people listen and watch with their
hearts much more than they do with their minds. Certainly if
you look at our own coverage in our own media and own public
attention to the media, immediately after the tragedy of 9/11
or throughout the war, it is clear that we watch with our
hearts. Certainly the media responds to that. Our public, when
we are in pain, is not neutral. It cannot be. You are in the
middle of pain, you are not going to make an objective
assessment, and the media is not neutral because its audience
is not neutral.
In that sense, we have to put in perspective that in the
Middle East this is a time of pain. There has been a time of
pain over the past few years. The war, the bloodshed in Iraq
and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the terrorism in Saudi
Arabia, Morocco, everywhere, it is a continuous time of pain,
and in those times of pain, people are watching with their
hearts and those stations that speak to the heart are the ones
that get the market share.
Frankly, I think Alhurra's biggest problem, biggest
challenge I should say--and I think it has been done
professionally, but I see it as a major challenge--is that the
notion of neutrality--Ambassador Rugh spoke about the
criticism, it does not speak with an pan-Arab voice. Well, I
think what they are saying is it is not speaking to the heart.
And the question is, when people want to hear through the
heart, can it reach them? Well, it is an interesting
experiment.
Let me make my final point which goes to another issue. I
served recently on the Advisory Committee on Public Diplomacy
that Congress mandated. It was a bipartisan committee that
presented a report to the administration. Clearly, we
understood that public diplomacy is important, but in that
report we also said that most of the anti-Americanism probably
is related to policies that cannot be addressed through public
diplomacy. We put it in perspective. Still, we thought there
are many things that public diplomacy could address and we
believe that the media plays a modest role within public
diplomacy but not even a central role. In fact, we addressed
largely the sort of issues on educational exchanges, media
exchanges, civil society exchanges, communication through
language and culture, as well as the media.
In that sense, I think we have to ask the question about
the bang for dollar that we are going to get out Alhurra. I
happen to think that in absolute terms, the budget is not huge,
and when you take into account that Alhurra's annual budget is
only one-third of what we spent daily in the war in Iraq, and
when you consider that it is an important part of the fight, I
think it is not a huge budget. But when you compare it to the
rest of the public diplomacy budget, which many of us think is
extremely important, I think then you have to ask questions
about the rest of the budget because there we found that only
$150 million is allocated to the entire public diplomacy
program toward 1.2 billion Muslims around the world, of which
only $25 million a year is allocated to public diplomacy
outreach programs. I think that is the question. I think as
long as we do not increase the public diplomacy budget on those
other programs that really, really badly need it, the
proportion of allocation will look less justified. I think in
absolute terms, the budget is small.
I think Alhurra should be there. I think there should be an
American voice. That American voice may not succeed in the
short term, but there is no reason why you cannot build trust
over time and wait until such time when you experiment and in
fact can reach a broad audience. In the short term, I think it
is an uphill battle.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Professor Telhami follows:]
Prepared Statement of Professor Shibley Telhami
Mr. Chairman, before addressing the role that Al-Hurra television
station and other American media can play in influencing the hearts and
minds in the Arab world, it is important to put the task in
perspective.
First, the prevalent resentment of American foreign policy in the
region and around the world is certainly influenced by the media
coverage, but ultimately is not shaped by it. Europeans, Africans,
Latin Americans, Asians do not watch Al-Jazeera or other Arab
satellites, and yet we know from surveys that resentment of American
foreign policy is pervasive in these places as well. Moreover, in the
Middle East, even those many who have no access to satellite television
express deep resentment of the United States. In fact, we know that the
rapid decline in confidence in the United States is not a function of
the media in the Middle East as such. In a public opinion survey
conducted by the State Department in the spring of 2000, for example,
over 60% of Saudis expressed confidence in the United States. The level
of confidence began rapidly declining after the collapse of the
Palestinian-Israeli negotiations in the fall of 2000 and continued to
decline in the spring. This decline accelerated after the tragedy of 9/
11 and the war on terrorism, reaching the single digits in the past
year. In short, much of the resentment toward the United States is the
consequence of events and policies, not the media coverage as such.
Second, to the extent that there is a profound change in the Arab
media that has taken place over the decade, it is this: the media is
far more market-driven than ever before. In the past, governments in
the region nearly monopolized the media, especially television, and
they catered largely to their own domestic constituencies. They
generally had captive audiences. Today most Arabs who have access to
satellite television have dozens of choices, mostly from outside their
own boundaries. They watch what they want to and turn off what they
don't. Successful media outlets such as Al-Jazeera prevail in getting a
large market share by understanding their consumer. Because the Arabic
language is common in all Arab states, language defines the potential
size of the market. As such, the target consumer is no longer ``the
Qatari'' or ``the Kuwaiti'' but ``the Arab.'' In that regard, a station
succeeds in getting the largest share of the market by understanding
what is most in common among Arabs and catering to it. In that regard,
the media more often than not reflects public opinion more than it
shapes it. That is not to say that it does not often reinforce opinions
or incite passions, but in the end people watch it because it resonates
with their preexisting passions and opinions.
Two examples are especially helpful in this regard. Al-Jazeera
television, which is now being accused of inciting anti-Americanism and
anti-Israeli sentiment in the Arab world, was accused by many Arabs in
the late 1990s of being ``pro-Israeli'' or even ``a Zionist agent.''
The reason for this attitude of many Arabs was that Al-Jazeera was
especially bold in putting on the air Israeli voices on a regular
basis, including coverage from the Israeli parliament (the Knesset).
When they discussed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, they not only
hosted Palestinian representatives but also Israeli representatives
(which incidentally they still often do). Still, despite that
accusation by some Arabs, Al-Jazeera gained a huge share of the market
for a simple reason: at the time, most Arabs assumed that peace between
Israel and the Arabs was on its way, and most knew little about Israel
and were interested in learning. Al-Jazeera brought Israel to homes in
Riyadh and Rabat that had not seen Israel before.
As soon as the negotiations collapsed and Israeli-Palestinian
violence escalated, the public had less hope for an agreement and was
more focused on the bloodshed. Al-Jazeera was there to cover it live.
It kept its market share. Last year, just before the Iraq war, when Al-
Jazeera came under pressure to lessen coverage of Palestinian-Israeli
bloodshed, something else happened. In Jordan, where Al-Jazeera has
been number one for news on the Arab-Israeli conflict, its share of the
market dropped to number two. Taking its place was a station that
focused on the violence even more: Al-Manar Television, run by the
Lebanese Hezbollah. In short, while we must understand that each
station, including Al-Jazeera, certainly has its own agenda, the degree
to which it succeeds in gaining the widest viewership is largely a
function of market demand.
Third, today's satellite Arab stations, especially Al-Jazeera, give
more direct voice to American officials than ever in the Arab world.
Most of these stations give live coverage with verbatim translations of
major news conferences by top American officials and military
commanders related to Middle Eastern matters. In general, these views
are presented without editing, although there are discussions that
follow with people who are often critical of American officials but
also those who are not. While such coverage gives the U.S. more direct
airing of its voice than ever, this is not always a good thing. This is
in part because American official views often reinforce the fears and
biases of the Arab viewers rather than alleviating them. In addition,
American officials, even when they are addressing a Middle Eastern
audience, speak with the knowledge that their words are going to be
ultimately judged by the American media, Congress, and American public
opinion, which therefore incline them to formulate their message in a
manner that again reinforces the fears and biases in the region.
Fourth, in times of pain, tragedy, and war, people everywhere, and
certainly Arabs, listen and watch with their hearts more than with
their minds. We have witnessed this first-hand in the weeks after the
9/11 horror and certainly during the war with Iraq. To some extent we
continue to experience this, although to a lesser extent. In the Middle
East, the last few years have been times of continued pain, war, and
tragedy, including in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in Iraq, in
major terrorist attacks in several Arab countries. The public is not
neutral, especially in these times. The media, even the professionally-
run media, is also not fully neutral: they reflect the passions of the
pubic. If they don't, few would watch. Certainly some reporters and
media outlets exploit this deliberately to gain viewership, which is
unfortunate but not surprising. But even those who are not deliberately
exploitative cannot escape sometimes speaking with and catering to the
heart. This is in fact one of the biggest obstacles facing a station
like Al-Hurra, which seeks to have a detached, objective analysis of
the news during times of pain. Its aim is to be precisely dispassionate
while facing a passionate audience. A recent example of this is when
Israel assassinated Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Al-Hurra ran a
short story as the news broke, then went back to its normal
programming, which focused on an episode in American history. Other
Arab satellites stayed with the story live and brought coverage with
different perspectives, including live shots, which was bound to gain a
far larger share of the market.
Fifth, I have already suggested at the beginning of this statement
that the media's role in shaping anti-Americanism is modest, and that
the most important factors are policies and events on the ground, not
strategies pursued by the media as such. In a recent report by an
advisory committee on public diplomacy, which was mandated by Congress,
and on which I had the honor of serving, we recognized that the role of
public diplomacy itself is relatively small in shaping attitudes,
compared with policies, even though this role is still important.
The media plays a relatively modest role even within public
diplomacy as such. The report emphasized, especially educational and
other civil society exchanges between the U.S. and Arab and Muslim
countries, as the best method of reaching the hearts and minds in the
long term. Still, the U.S. should have a voice in the region and cannot
be absent from the media market, as this market is evolving and will
continue to evolve as a consequence of technological change and
increasing competition. In that sense it is certainly useful to begin
experimenting with television and radio programming that may ultimately
have an effect. But two things must be kept in mind in this regard.
First, expectations must be put in perspective here. Al-Hurra, no
matter how professionally run (and I believe it is professionally run)
will not succeed in any foreseeable future in either gaining a
significant share of the news market in the region, nor be able to
significantly affect public opinion on its own. It must be conceived
for now as having an American voice that essentially will gain enough
trust overtime to have a positive, even if small, impact. Second, one
has to assess its desirability in terms of the bang for the dollar: In
the end it comes down to resources. In absolute terms, the funds spent
on Al-Hurra are not large if one considers that we're spending nearly
three times as much as its entire annual budget in a single day in the
Iraq war. But that same amount brings to mind the extraordinarily low
amount of money and the low budget that the U.S. government expends on
its entire public diplomacy program in the Muslim world of 1.2 billion
people. (The estimated budget is $150 million annually, of which only
$25 million are specifically allocated to public diplomacy outreach
programs.) Until that budget expands significantly, as I believe it
should, the allocation to Al-Hurra will seem disproportionate.
Thank you Mr. Chairman
Senator Sununu. Thank you, Doctor.
Mr. Ford.
STATEMENT OF JESS T. FORD, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND
TRADE, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Mr. Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate being
invited here today.
I am going to focus a little bit more on management issues
with U.S. international broadcasting which is based on several
reports we recently issued on international broadcasting and
public diplomacy.
Our reports over the last several years have examined a
number of organizational, marketing, resource, and performance
management challenges facing U.S. international broadcasting
overall. Our two most recent reports have addressed the board's
principal response to these challenges, the development of a
new 5-year strategic approach to international broadcasting,
which emphasizes the reach of large audiences and applying
modern broadcast techniques and strategically allocating
resources to high-priority broadcast markets. Early
implementation of this strategy has focused on markets relevant
to the war on terrorism and, in particular, the Middle East and
Central Asia.
The Broadcasting Board of Governors faces a number of
challenges. Key among them is how to achieve large audiences in
priority markets while dealing with the disparate
organizational structure consisting of five broadcast entities
and a mix of Federal and grantee organizations managed by a
part-time board and a collection of outdated and noncompetitive
language services that have failed to respond to current market
conditions. The disparate structure of U.S. international
broadcasting has led to overlapping language services,
duplication of program content, redundant news gathering and
support services, and difficulties in coordinating broadcast
efforts. Marketing challenges include the use of the outmoded
program formats and styles, the general lack of target
audiences within broadcast markets, poor signal delivery in
many areas, and low audience awareness in several major
markets.
The board's new strategic approach is designed to address
these problems. The board has developed a so-called single
system which it hopes to use to consolidate and modernize its
broadcast operations. Recent board initiatives such as Radio
Sawa broadcast to the Middle East and Radio Farda broadcast to
Iran illustrate the board's willingness to serve as a content
manager for U.S. international broadcasting and to adopt
market-based approaches designed to attract large listening
audiences.
Triggered by a desire to better manage its limited
resources, the board has used its annual language service
review process to identify and reallocate cost savings to
higher-priority needs. The process is used to address such
complex resource issues as how funds should be allocated among
the language services based on their priority and impact, how
major broadcast services should be carried in total, what
degree of overlap and content duplication should exist among
the services, and whether services should be eliminated because
they fulfill their broadcast mission.
Since 1999, the board has identified more than $50 million
in actual or potential savings through this process. For
example, its language review process from 1999 to 2000 resulted
in about $20 million being reallocated from low-priority impact
services to help fund Radio Sawa and Radio Farda. Most recently
the board has used the language service process as a vehicle
for identifying language services that should be eliminated.
For example, based on its review process, the board's fiscal
year 2004 budget request to Congress recommended the
elimination of 17 Central and Eastern European language
services managed by the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe,
saving approximately $21 million. These decisions will be
critical to the board's ability to channel resources to the
higher-priority markets such as broadcast in the Middle East
and Central Asia.
In response to a number of our recommendations, the board
has revised its strategic planning approach with a goal of
reaching large markets as a centerpiece for performance
reporting and has identified broadcast credibility and audience
awareness as key performance measures. These steps will help
the board answer questions about the effectiveness of such
efforts as Radio Sawa and TV Alhurra in reaching mass audiences
and elites in the Middle East, whether foreign publics perceive
U.S. broadcast as being independent of American foreign policy,
and whether VOA is effectively promoting the image of the
United States and educating foreign audiences about U.S.
practices and policies.
In conclusion, our work shows that the board has taken a
number of important steps over the last several years to
improve strategic planning and develop a review process to
allocate funds to the highest priority needs. The board must
continue to look for ways to streamline and modernize
broadcasting operations and ensure that resources it receives
are effectively meeting the goals, especially in priority
markets.
I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ford follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jess T. Ford
U.S. INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING
Challenges Facing the Broadcasting Board of Governors
WHAT GAO FOUND
The Broadcasting Board of Governors has responded to a disparate
organizational structure and marketing challenges by developing a new
strategic approach to broadcasting which, among other things,
emphasizes reaching large audiences through modern broadcasting
techniques. Organizationally, the existence of five separate broadcast
entities has led to overlapping language services, duplication of
program content, redundant newsgathering and support services, and
difficulties coordinating broadcast efforts. Marketing challenges
include outmoded program formats, poor signal delivery, and low
audience awareness in many markets. Alhurra television broadcasts to
the Middle East and Radio Farda broadcasts to Iran illustrate the
Board's efforts to better manage program content and meet the needs of
its target audiences. Although we have not validated available research
data, the Board claims that the application of its new approach has led
to dramatic increases in listening rates in key Middle East markets.
To streamline its operations, the Board has used its annual
language service review process to address such issues as how resources
should be allocated among language services on the basis of their
priority and impact, what degree of overlap should exist among
services, and whether services should be eliminated because they have
fulfilled their broadcast mission. Since 1999, the Board has identified
more than $50 million in actual or potential savings through this
process.
In response to our recommendations on the Board's strategic
planning and performance management efforts, the Board revised its
strategic plan to make reaching large audiences in strategic markets
the centerpiece of its performance reporting system. The Board also
added broadcaster credibility and audience awareness to its array of
performance measures and plans to add a measure of whether VOA is
meeting its mandated mission.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am pleased to be here today to provide an overview of the three
reports we have issued over the past 4 years on the operations of the
Broadcasting Board of Governors.\1\ \2\ \3\ These reports have examined
a number of organizational, marketing, resource, and performance
management challenges facing U.S. international broadcasting. Our two
most recent reports have addressed the Board's principal response to
these challenges--a new 5-year strategic approach to international
broadcasting known as ``Marrying the Mission to the Market,'' which
emphasizes the need to reach large audiences by applying modern
broadcast techniques and strategically allocating resources to focus on
high-priority broadcast markets. Early implementation of this strategy
has focused on markets relevant to the war on terrorism, in particular
the Middle East and central Asia.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ U.S. General Accounting Office, U.S. International
Broadcasting: Strategic Planning and Performance Management System
Could Be Improved, GAO/NSIAD-00-222 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 27, 2000).
\2\ U.S. General Accounting Office, U.S. International
Broadcasting: New Strategic Approach Focuses on Reaching Large
Audiences but Lacks Measurable Program Objectives, GAO-03-772
(Washington, D.C.: July 15, 2003).
\3\ U.S. General Accounting Office, U.S. Internatiownal
Broadcasting: Enhanced Measure of Local Media Conditions Would
Facilitate Decisions to Terminate Language Services, GAO-04-374
(Washington, D.C.: Feb. 26, 2004).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drawing from our published reports as well as recent testimony on
U.S. public diplomacy,\4\ I will talk today about (1) organizational
and marketing obstacles and the Board's efforts to overcome them, (2)
what the Board has done to manage its limited resources, and (3) the
status of Board efforts to develop meaningful performance goals and
measures. I will also discuss our recommendations to the Board and the
status of its response to them. As part of our work to prepare for this
testimony, we met with Board staff to obtain updated program data and
current information on the steps the Board has taken to respond to our
recommendations. The reports used for this testimony were based on work
conducted in accordance with government auditing standards.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ U.S. General Accounting Office, U.S. Public Diplomacy: State
Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors Expand Efforts in
the Middle East but Face Significant Challenges, GAO-04-435T
(Washington, D.C.: Feb. 10, 2004).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY
The Broadcasting Board of Governors faces a number of challenges,
and key among them is how to achieve large audiences in priority
markets while dealing with (1) a disparate organizational structure
consisting of five broadcast entities and a mix of federal and grantee
organizations managed by a part-time Board and (2) a collection of
outdated and noncompetitive language services that have failed to
respond to current market conditions. The disparate structure of U.S.
international broadcasting has led to overlapping language services,
duplication of program content, redundant newsgathering and support
services, and difficulties in coordinating broadcast efforts. Marketing
challenges include the use of outmoded program formats and styles, the
general lack of target audiences within broadcast markets, poor signal
delivery in many areas, and low audience awareness in several major
markets. The Board's new strategic approach addresses these issues by
treating broadcast entities as content providers within a ``single
system'' that the Board oversees to ensure that broadcast content meets
the discrete needs of individual markets using modern broadcasting
techniques. Recent Board initiatives such as Radio Sawa broadcasts to
the Middle East and Radio Farda broadcasts to Iran illustrate the
Board's willingness both to serve as the content manager for U.S.
international broadcasting and to adopt a market-based approach
designed to attract large listening audiences in high-priority markets
in support of U.S. strategic objectives in the war on terrorism.
Although we have not validated available research data, the Board
claims that the application of its new strategic approach has led to
dramatic increases in audience listening rates in markets of key
strategic interest to the United States.
Triggered by a desire to better manage its limited resources, the
Board has used its annual language service review process to identify
and reallocate cost savings to fund higher-priority needs, such as
expanded initiatives in the Middle East and central Asia. The process
is used to address such complex resource issues as how funds should be
allocated among services based on their priority and impact, how many
broadcast services should be carried, what degree of overlap and
content duplication should exist among services, and whether services
should be eliminated because they have fulfilled their broadcast
mission. Since 1999, the Board has identified more than $50 million in
actual or potential budget savings through the language service review
process. From 1999 through 2002, the language service review process
resulted in the reallocation of about $19.7 million from lower-priority
or lower-impact language services to higher-priority broadcast needs,
including Radio Farda and Radio Sawa In response to our recommendation,
the Board updated its review process to include a specific analysis of
overlapping language services.\5\ In its 2003 review, the Board
identified $12.4 million in fiscal year 2004 and 2005 transmission cost
and language service overlap reductions that could be reallocated to
higher-priority needs, such as expanding Urdu language broadcasts to
Pakistan and Persian language television to Iran. Finally, the Board
has used its language service review process as a vehicle for
identifying which language services should be eliminated. For example,
based on its review process, the Board's fiscal year 2004 budget
request to Congress recommended the elimination of 17 Central and
Eastern European language services managed by Voice of America (VOA)
and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), saving a projected $20.9
million for fiscal years 2004 and 2005. While the Board is to be
commended for making a difficult decision in this case, our February
2004 report did note that the language service review process lacks an
adequate measure of whether domestic media provide accurate, balanced,
and comprehensive news and information to national audiences--a
condition that Congress expects to be met before RFE/RL language
services are terminated.\6\
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\5\ Overlap exists when a VOA and a surrogate service, such as RFE/
RL, broadcast in the same language to the same target audience. Some
degree of overlap is appropriate given the varying missions of U.S.
broadcast entities. However, In its new strategic plan, the Board
identified a 40 percent overlap in its language services as excessive.
\6\ With passage of the Fiscal Year 2004 Consolidated
Appropriations Act, House and Senate conferees adopted the Board's
proposal to terminate service to those Central and Eastern European
nations that have been invited to become new member states of the
European Union or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and
have received a Freedom House (a nonprofit group reporting on economic,
political, and press freedom issues around the world) rating equal to
that of the United States. Conferees expressed the expectation that
broadcast services would continue in Romanian and Croatian.
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In response to our recommendations on the Board's strategic
planning and performance management efforts, the Board revised its
strategic plan to make the goal of reaching large audiences in
strategic markets the centerpiece of its performance reporting system.
Also in response to our recommendations, the Board added broadcaster
credibility and audience awareness to its array of performance measures
and plans to add a measure of whether VOA is meeting its mission. These
steps will help the Board answer questions about the effectiveness of
initiatives such as Radio Sawa and Alhurra (the two entities comprising
the Middle East Television Network) in reaching mass audiences and
elites in the Middle East, whether foreign publics perceive U.S.
broadcast services as being independent of American foreign policy, and
whether VOA is effectively promoting the image of the United States and
educating foreign audiences about U.S. practices and policies.
BACKGROUND
The Broadcasting Board of Governors oversees the efforts of all
nonmilitary international broadcasting, which reaches an estimated
audience of more than 100 million people each week in more than 125
markets worldwide. The Board manages the operations of the
International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), VOA, the Middle East
Television Network (Alhurra and Radio Sawa), RFE/RL, and Radio Free
Asia (RFA). In addition to serving as a reliable source of news and
information, VOA is responsible for presenting U.S. policies through a
variety of means, including officially labeled government editorials.
Radio/TV Marti, RFE/RL, and RFA were created by Congress to function as
``surrogate'' broadcasters, designed to temporarily replace the local
media of countries where a free and open press does not exist. Created
by the Bush administration and the Board, the Middle East Television
Network draws its mission from the core purpose of U.S. international
broadcasting, which is to promote and sustain freedom by broadcasting
accurate and objective news and information about the United States and
the world to audiences overseas.\7\
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\7\ The U.S. International Broadcasting Act of 1994 states that
U.S. international broadcasting efforts should, among other things, be
consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United
States; provide a balanced and comprehensive projection of U.S. thought
and institutions; and provide accurate and objective news and
information about developments in significant regions of the world.
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In addition to the stand-alone entities that make up U.S.
international broadcasting, Congress and the Board have created other
broadcast organizations to meet specific program objectives. Congress
created Radio Free Iraq, Radio Free Iran, and Radio Free Afghanistan
and incorporated these services into RFE/RL's operations. Under its new
strategic approach to broadcasting, the Board and the Bush
administration created Radio Sawa, the Afghanistan Radio Network (ARN),
Radio Farda, and Alhurra to replace poorly performing services, more
effectively combine existing services, and create new broadcast
entities where needed. Figure 1 illustrates the Board's current
organizational structure.
VOA, RFE/RL, and RFA are organized around a collection of language
services that produces program content. In some countries, more than
one entity broadcasts in the same language. These overlapping services
are designed to meet the distinct missions of each broadcast entity.
Currently, 42 of the Board's 74 language services (or 57 percent)
target the same audiences in the same languages. While some degree of
overlap is to be expected given the varying missions of the broadcast
entities, the Board has concluded that this level of overlap requires
ongoing analysis and scrutiny.
The Board's budget for fiscal year 2003 was approximately $552
million, with nearly half of its resources used to cover transmission,
technical support, Board and IBB management staff salaries, and other
support costs. Among the broadcast entities, funds are roughly equally
divided among VOA and the four other U.S. broadcasting entities. Figure
2 provides a breakout of the Board's fiscal year 2003 budget.
DISPARATE STRUCTURE AND AN OUTMODED BROADCAST APPROACH HAMPER EFFORTS
TO REACH LARGE AUDIENCES IN STRATEGIC MARKETS
Our reviews of U.S. international broadcasting reveal that the
Board faces the challenges of operating a mix of broadcast entities
with varying missions and structures in an environment that provides
significant marketing obstacles. As we reported in July 2003, the Board
has adopted a new approach to broadcasting that is designed to overcome
several of these challenges. The Board's key organizational challenge
is the disparate mix of broadcast entities it is tasked with
managing.\8\ To address this problem, the Board has adopted a ``single
system'' approach to broadcasting whereby broadcast entities are viewed
as content providers and the Board assumes a central role in tailoring
this content to meet the demands of individual markets. The Board also
faces marketing challenges that include the lack of a unique reason for
listeners to tune in, the general lack of target audiences within
broadcast markets, and poor-to-fair signal quality for many of the
broadcast services. Recent initiatives such as Radio Sawa and Alhurra
have addressed these deficiencies, and the Board has required that all
broadcast services, to the extent feasible, address these issues as
well.
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\8\ Our July 2003 report discusses additional organizational
issues, including the potential need for a Chief Executive Officer or
Chief Operating Officer to handle day-to-day operations for the Board
and whether VOA and Radio/TV Marti should be reconstituted as grantees
to put them on the same footing as other U.S. broadcast entities.
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DISPARATE STRUCTURE OF BROADCAST OPERATIONS REMAINS AN ONGOING
CHALLENGE
The Board's major organizational challenge is the need to further
consolidate and streamline its operations to better leverage existing
resources and generate greater program impact in priority markets.
According to the Board's strategic plan, ``the diversity of the
Broadcasting Board of Governors--diverse organizations with different
missions, different frameworks, and different constituencies--makes it
a challenge to bring all the separate parts together in a more
effective whole.'' As noted in our 2003 report, senior program managers
and outside experts with whom we spoke supported considering the option
of consolidating U.S. international broadcasting efforts into a single
entity.
The Board intends to create a unified broadcasting system by
treating the component parts of U.S. international broadcasting as a
single system. Under this approach, VOA and other U.S. broadcast
entities are viewed as content providers, and the Board's role is to
bring this content together to form new services or entities as needed.
The single-system approach to managing the Board's diversity requires
that the Board actively manage resources across broadcast entities to
achieve common broadcast goals. A good example of this strategy in
action is Radio Farda, which combined VOA and RFE/RL broadcast content
to produce a new broadcast product for the Iranian market. In the case
of Radio Sawa, the Board replaced VOA's poorly performing Arabic
service with a new broadcast entity. The Board's experience with
implementing Radio Sawa suggests that it can be difficult to make
disparate broadcast entities work toward a common purpose. For example,
Board members and senior planners told us they encountered some
difficulties attempting to work with officials to launch Radio Sawa
within VOA's structure and were later forced to constitute Radio Sawa
as a separate grantee organization. While this move was needed to
achieve the Board's strategic objectives, it contributed to the further
fragmentation of U.S. international broadcasting.
NEW INITIATIVES ADDRESS MARKETING CHALLENGES
The Board's strategic plan comments openly on the marketing
challenges facing U.S. international broadcasters, specifically that
many language services lack a unique reason for listeners or viewers to
tune in; few language services have identified their target audiences-a
key first step in developing a broadcast strategy; many language
services have outmoded formats and programs with an antiquated, even
Cold War, sound and style; and three-quarters of transmitted hours have
poor or fair signal quality.
Consistent with its ``Marrying the Mission to the Market''
philosophy, the Board has sought to address these deficiencies in key
markets with new initiatives in Afghanistan, Iran, and the Middle East
that support the war on terrorism. The first project under the new
approach, Radio Sawa (recently added to the new Middle East Television
Network), was launched in March 2002 using many of the modern, market-
tested broadcasting techniques and practices prescribed in its
strategic plan, including identifying a target audience, researching
the best way to attract the target audience, and delivering programming
to the Middle East in a contemporary and appealing format. The Board's
other recent initiatives also have adhered to this new approach by
being tailored to the specific circumstances of each target market.
These initiatives include the Afghanistan Radio Network, Radio Farda
service to Iran, and the Alhurra satellite service to the Middle East.
Table 1 describes the Board's recent projects that support the war on
terrorism.
Table 1: The Board's Recent Initiatives that Support the War on Terrorism
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Initiative Launch date Project description
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Radio Sawa\1\ March 2002 A modern Arabic-language network that broadcasts music,
news, and information to a target audience of 15- to 29-
year olds in the Middle East via a combination of FM,
medium wave, short wave, digital audio satellite, and
Internet transmission resources. Separate streams are
targeted to Iraq, Jordan and the West Bank, the Persian
Gulf, Egypt, and Morocco. All five streams have a
differentiated music program; however, the news is similar
on the four non-Iraq streams. Board officials say that
Radio Sawa broadcasts between 10 to 15 minutes of news
each hour.
Afghanistan Radio Network August 2002 Afghanistan Radio Network is a coordinated stream of VOA
Dari and Pashto and RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan radio
programming. The network targets the broad Afghani
population and currently broadcasts 24 hours, 7 days a
week on FM and the Internet. It broadcasts 12 hours in
Dari and 12 hours in Pashto daily. It features hourly
regional and global news and information coverage as well
as reports on issues such as health, education, politics,
human rights, women's rights, and economic reconstruction.
Radio Farda December 2002 Radio Farda combines the efforts of VOA and RFE/RL into a
single service managed by RFE/RL. Radio Farda targets its
broadcasts to the under-30 youth in Iran. It broadcasts a
combination of popular Persian and Western music and a
total of 8 hours of news and information content daily,
focusing on regional coverage and developments relating to
Iran. News updates are given at least twice an hour, with
longer news programming in the morning and evening. It
broadcasts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via medium wave,
digital audio satellite, and the Internet, as well as 21
hours a day via short wave.
Alhurra\2\ February 2004 With a focus on attracting a broad audience in the Middle
East, the Alhurra satellite television channel provides
news, current affairs, and entertainment programming on a
24 hours, 7 days a week basis. Programming focuses on news
and information, including hourly news updates, daily hour-
long newscasts, and current affairs talk shows. The
channel also broadcasts information or educational shows
on subjects including health and fitness, entertainment,
sports, and science and technology.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Recently added to the Middle East Television Network.
\2\ Part of the Middle East Television Network. Q02
Source: Broadcasting Board of Governors.
Although we have not validated available research data, the Board
claims that implementation of these marketing improvements has led to
dramatic increases in audience listening rates. For example, based on
surveys conducted by ACNielsen, the Board maintains that Radio Sawa is
now the number one international broadcaster in six countries in the
Middle East,\9\ reaching an average weekly audience of about 38 percent
of the general population and about 49 percent of its 15- to 29-year-
old target audience across all six countries. These levels far exceed
the 1 to 2 percent audience reach of the VOA Arabic service, which
Radio Sawa replaced. In addition, the Board's main research
contractor--InterMedia--has indicated that as of March 2004, Radio
Farda is the leading international broadcaster in Iran--achieving an
average weekly listenership of 15 percent, which is 10 percent more
than the combined weekly audiences for VOA and RFE/RL's prior services
to Iran. Board officials have told us that preliminary audience reach
data for the Board's satellite channel Alhurra will be available by
June of this year. While the audience numbers on Radios Sawa and Farda
appear to be very positive, as we reported in July 2003, U.S.
broadcasters suffer from a credibility problem. To address this issue,
we recommended that the Board adopt measures of broadcaster
credibility, which the Board has recently implemented.
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\9\ Countries surveyed include Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the United
Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Morocco. Research for Egypt, Qatar, UAE, and
Kuwait was conducted in July and August 2003. Research for Jordan and
Morocco was conducted in February 2004. The six countries covered by
the survey represent only a portion of Radio Sawa's target broadcast
area--21 Muslim-majority countries in North Africa, the Near East, and
the Persian Gulf. Notably absent from the Board's performance
statistics are data on major target countries such as Sudan (about 21
million adults), Algeria (abut 21 million adults), and Saudi Arabia
(about 14 million adults).
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In addition to these new initiatives, the Board has tasked all
language services with adopting the tenets of its new approach, such as
identifying a target audience and improving signal quality, to the
maximum extent possible within existing budget constraints. They hope
that these improvements will lead to significant audience boosts for a
number of higher- and lower-priority services that suffer from very low
listening rates. For example, data from the Board's 2003 language
review show that more than one-quarter of all language services had
listening rates of fewer than 2 percent at that time.
language service review used to reallocate millions to higher-priority
BROADCAST NEEDS
The Board manages its limited resources through its annual language
service review process, which is used to address such issues as how
resources should be allocated among services based on their priority
and impact, how many broadcast services should be carried, what degree
of overlap and content duplication \10\ should exist among services,
and whether services should be eliminated because they have fulfilled
their broadcast mission. This process responds to the congressional
mandate that the Board periodically review the need to add and delete
language services. The Board has interpreted this mandate to include
the expansion and reduction of language services. Since 1999, the Board
has identified more than $50 million in actual or potential savings
through the language service review process by moving resources from
lower- to higher-priority services, by eliminating language services,
and by reducing language service overlap and transmission costs.
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\10\ Content duplication occurs when VOA and another U.S. broadcast
entity provide the same type of information to the same audience. Board
analysis shows that VOA carries more information about America than the
surrogates and surrogates carry more local news than VOA. However,
there are areas of overlap in content because each broadcast entity
carries news about America, as well as international, regional, and
local events.
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REVIEW PROCESS USED TO ADDRESS COMPLEX RESOURCE ISSUES
As noted in our July 2003 report, the Board's strategic plan
concludes that if U.S. international broadcasting is to become a vital
component of U.S. foreign policy, it must focus on a clear set of
broadcast priorities. The plan notes that trying to do too much at the
same time fractures this focus, extends the span of control beyond
management capabilities, and siphons off precious resources. As
discussed in our report, the Board determined that current efforts to
support its broadcast languages are ``unsustainable'' with current
resources, given its desire to increase impact in high-priority
markets. Our survey of senior program managers revealed that a majority
supported significantly reducing the total number of language services
and the overlap in services between VOA and the surrogate broadcasters.
We found that 18 of 24 respondents said that too many language services
are offered. When asked how many countries should have more than one
U.S. international broadcaster providing service in the same language,
23 of 28 respondents said this should occur in only a few countries or
no countries at all.
The Board's annual language service review process serves as the
Board's principal tool for managing these complex resource questions.
This process has evolved into an intensive program and budget review
that culminates with ranked priority and impact listings for each of
the Board's 74 language services. These ranked lists become the basis
for proposed language service reductions or eliminations and provide
the Board with an analytical basis for making such determinations using
measures of U.S. strategic interests, audience size, press freedom, and
a host of other factors. Since the first language service review
process began in 1999 and up through 2002, the Board has reduced the
scope of operations of over 25 language services based on their
priority and impact rankings and reallocated about $19.7 million to
help fund higher-priority broadcast needs such as Radio Sawa and Radio
Farda.
As discussed in our February 2004 report, a clear example of the
language service review process in action was the Board's recent
proposal to eliminate 17 Central and Eastern European language services
which served to reduce the overall number of language services and
eliminate several overlapping services where the Board believed each
broadcast entity's mission had been completed. This decision resulted
in nonrecurring budget savings of about $8.8 million for fiscal year
2004 and recurring annual savings of about $12.1 million. Our only
criticism of this decision was that the Board's language service review
process did not include a measure of press freedom that gauges whether
the press acts responsibly and professionally.\11\ This is a
significant omission in the Board's current measure, given the
congressional concern that RFE/RL's broadcast operations not be
terminated until a country's domestic media meet this condition.\12\
Board officials acknowledged that their existing press freedom measure
could be updated to include information on media responsibility and
professional quality, and work is under way to develop a more
comprehensive measure for the Board's 2004 language service review.
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\11\ The Board's current press freedom measure index relies heavily
on Freedom House's press freedom index, which focuses on free speech
issues, the plurality of news sources, whether media are economically
independent from the government, and whether supporting institutions
and laws function in the professional interest of the press. The
Freedom House index is used and respected by media groups around the
world. However, it does not assess whether domestic media provide
accurate, balanced, and comprehensive news and information.
\12\ See Title III of P.L 103-236, as amended by P.L. 106-113,
Appendix G, Section 503.
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REVIEW OF OVERLAPPING LANGUAGE SERVICES IMPLEMENTED
In our September 2000 report, we cited the Board's concerns about
overlapping language services and its plans to address this issue in
subsequent iterations of the language service review process. In our
July 2003 report we again raised the issue of language service overlap
and content duplication between VOA and the surrogates. We also noted
that while the Board's strategic plan identified overlap as a
challenge, it failed to answer questions about when it is appropriate
to broadcast VOA and surrogate programming in the same language.
The Board has responded to our observations and recommendations by
incorporating a review of overlapping services in its language service
review process for 2003. The Board developed several approaches to
dealing with overlap. For example, services can be ``merged'' by having
one service subsume another (as was the case with Radio Farda). A
second approach is to run alternating services, as is the case with the
Afghanistan Radio Network, which runs VOA and RFE?RL programming on a
single broadcast stream. Another approach is to simply terminate one or
both overlapping services. All of the Board's overlapping services were
assessed with these different approaches in mind. As a result of this
analysis, the Board identified an estimated $4.9 million in fiscal year
2004 and 2005 savings from overlap services that could be redirected to
higher-priority broadcasting needs, such as expanded Persian language
television for Iran and expanded Urdu language radio for Pakistan.\13\
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\13\ The Board also identified an estimated $7.5 million in fiscal
year 2004 and 2005 savings from transmission reductions during its 2003
language service review.
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STRATEGIC PLANNING AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM REVISED TO PLACE A
GREATER FOCUS ON RESULTS
Mr. Chairman, the Board has revised its strategic planning and
performance management system to respond to the recommendations in our
July 2003 report aimed at improving the measurement of its results. In
that report, we recommended that the Board's new strategic plan include
a goal designed to gauge progress toward reaching significant audiences
in markets of strategic interest to the United States. Our report also
recommended that the Board establish key performance indicators
relating to the perceived credibility of U.S. broadcasters, whether
audiences are aware of U.S. broadcast offerings in their area, and
whether VOA is achieving its mission of effectively explaining U.S.
policies and practices to overseas audiences.\14\
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\14\ This Board's strategic planning and performance management
system includes its 5-year strategic plan, Results Act reporting
(annual performance plans and reports), the Office of Management and
Budget's new Program Assessment Rating Tool, the annual language
service review process, and annual program reviews of individual
language services.
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REACHING LARGE AUDIENCES IN KEY MARKETS
In response to our recommendation for a goal that would measure
progress in reaching large audiences in markets of strategic interest
to the United States, the Board replaced the seven strategic goals in
its plan with a single goal focused on this core objective.\15\ The
goal is supported by a number of performance indicators (at the entity
and language service level) that are designed to measure the reach of
U.S. international broadcasting efforts and whether programming is
delivered in the most effective manner possible. Weekly listening rates
at the entity level and target audience numbers by language service
provide key measures of the Board's reach. Other program effectiveness
measures include program quality, the number of broadcast affiliates,
signal strength, Internet usage, and cost per listener.
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\15\ We also reported that efforts to assess the effectiveness of
the Board's new approach to broadcasting may be hampered by the lack of
details on how the Board intends to implement each of its program
objectives. Our September 2000 and July 2003 reports both noted that
the Board's performance plans lacked specifics on implementation
strategies, resource requirements, and project time frames. The Board
acknowledged these deficiencies and said that major changes are slated
for future planning efforts.
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BROADCASTER CREDIBILITY
In response to our recommendation for a measure of broadcaster
credibility to identify whether target audiences believe what they
hear, the Board added such a measure to its performance management
system. Reaching a large listening or viewing audience is of little use
if audiences largely discount the news and information portions of
broadcasts. Our survey of senior program managers and discussions with
Board staff and outside groups all suggest the possibility that U.S.
broadcasters (VOA in particular) suffer from a credibility problem with
foreign audiences, who may view VOA and other broadcasters as biased
sources of information. InterMedia, the Board's audience research
contractor, told us that it was working on a credibility index for
another customer that could be adapted to meet the Board's needs and,
when segmented by language service, would reveal whether there are
significant perception problems among key target audiences. However, to
develop a similar measure, InterMedia told us that the Board would need
to add several questions to its national survey instruments.
AUDIENCE AWARENESS
In response to our finding that the Board lacked a measure of
audience awareness, the Board has added such a measure to its
performance management system. We determined this measure would help
the Board answer a key question of effectiveness: whether target
audiences are even aware of U.S. international broadcasting programming
available in their area. Board officials have stated that this measure
would help the Board understand a key factor in audience share rates
and what could be done to address audience share deficiencies. We found
that the Board could develop this measure because it already collects
information on language service awareness levels in its audience
research and in national surveys for internal use.
VOA MISSION EFFECTIVENESS
Finally, in response to our finding that the Board lacked a measure
of whether target audiences hear, understand, and retain information
broadcast by VOA on American thought, institutions, and policies, Board
officials we spoke with told us that they are currently developing this
measure for inclusion in the Board's performance management system. The
unique value-added component of VOA's broadcasting mission is its focus
on issues and information concerning the United States, our system of
government, and the rationale behind U.S. policy decisions. Tracking
and reporting these data are important in determining whether VOA is
accomplishing its mission. Officials from the Board's research firm
noted that developing a measure of this sort is feasible and requires
developing appropriate quantitative and qualitative questions to
include in the Board's ongoing survey activities.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be
happy to respond to any questions you or other members of the
subcommittee may have at this time.
Senator Sununu. Thank you, Mr. Ford.
Dr. Ghareeb.
STATEMENT OF DR. EDMUND GHAREEB, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF MIDDLE
EAST HISTORY AND POLITICS, SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL SERVICE,
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY
Dr. Ghareeb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to
be here.
Let me say right now that there is a credibility gap
between the United States and the Middle East, and we have
heard about this quite a bit today and in the media. Due to
recent events, this disparity is increasing at a startling
pace. Many in the region judge, as we have heard, the United
States mainly on its foreign policy and how it affects the
people in the region. The United States needs to reach out to
the people of the area and to try to close that widening gap.
There have been many outreach projects in the past. The
USIA and the Voice of America have been there. Alhurra and
Radio Sawa are the latest media endeavors by Congress and the
Broadcasting Board of Governors, and they are the most
comprehensive initiatives so far to try to reach the people of
the area. While radio and satellite ownership has exploded in
recent years, reaching people is by no means an easy task.
Even before Alhurra was on the air, many people in the area
and in the region said that it would be a mouthpiece for the
U.S. Government. In the months ahead, Alhurra will have to
prove itself over and over again by providing credible and
objective news coverage and analysis, by interviewing people
who do not always agree with the current administration and its
policies.
Effective communication also requires taking your
audience's views, values, feelings, and sense of identity into
account. It is not enough to tell people what is on your mind.
You have to listen to them. You have to find out what is on
their minds.
If Alhurra and Radio Sawa are able to prove that their news
is reliable and free of government influence, they will have a
unique opportunity to cover stories that put U.S. policies in
context and debate them freely. It bears repeating, however,
that there should be no interference from the U.S. Government.
As you know, most Arab media outlets are state run. Governments
influence what is covered and how to cover it. Consequently,
people in the region are quite suspicious of all official
media.
Furthermore, there is a great deal of competition, as you
have heard today from Ambassador Rugh and Professor Telhami.
There is saturation of the media environment in the Middle
East. The information technology revolution, the CNN factor,
dissatisfaction with their own media and dissatisfaction with
the way the Western media covered the Gulf War of 1991
contributed to the rise of a new and more independent Arab
print and TV media. Today, in addition to the BBC and Radio
Monte Carlo, many people are getting their news and
entertainment from Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, Al Hayat-LBC, Abu
Dhabi, Dubai, ANN, Future, Radio Orient, NBC, Al Manar, and
many others.
There have been several references in the news recently to
the allegation that media outlets such as Al Jazeera and Al
Arabiya are sparking the recent uprisings and encouraging
people to take a stand against the coalition forces. I think it
is important to remember that the media in the region mirror
the feelings and the attitudes of their audiences. They place
as much emphasis on reflecting the emotions and the attitudes
in the region as they do on the events of the day. They may
influence people, but the sentiment is already there. They are
not creating the problem. That is where Alhurra and Radio Sawa
have the opportunity, the potential to play a big role. They
have the opportunity to provide the region with a
straightforward approach to the news free of emotional
coloration and innuendo.
When Alhurra started, an American journalist interviewed a
Jordanian about what he thought of a program he had just
watched, and the man said that was all right, that he had heard
different people who represented a spectrum of views on the
program. But when told that Alhurra was financed by the U.S.
Government, he decided the program was terrible. The change in
attitude was perceptible.
A serious problem likely to face media coverage is that the
same events mean different things to different audiences.
Presenting events only as they are seen through American eyes
may alienate Arabs and Muslims. To many Americans, the fighters
in Fallujah or in Najaf are insurgents and terrorists. For many
Iraqis and Muslims, they are resistance fighters.
When American forces in Iraq attack the insurgents in
Fallujah, it is perceived by many Arabs and Muslims because of
collateral damage, the death of innocent bystanders, as though
the U.S. is attacking the city and its inhabitants. When
mosques in the city broadcast prayers appealing to God under
fire, it looks like the U.S. is attacking Islam. These are
emotionally charged situations, and emotions differ depending
on one's identity. The challenge facing the U.S. officials and
the U.S. media today is that messages are being broadcast from
one side to the other not just through the media, but by the
unspoken messages conveyed by symbols and pictures.
Iraq and the Palestinian question, as we have also heard
earlier, are very important issues for many Arabs and Muslims.
Public diplomacy, accompanied by a very credible media
performance by Radio Sawa and Alhurra, will not by themselves
sway the majority of Arab and Muslim public opinion unless the
Muslims and Arabs come to believe that U.S. policies are taking
their concerns and aspirations into account.
I also think it is important to point out that, yes, the
sentiments against American policies is very strong right now.
However, feelings toward the U.S. and the American people are
not all negative. When you talk to people in the Middle East
about personal freedom, about democracy, about values that
Americans enjoy and advocate, it is something they admire and
are intrigued by. American technological, scientific and
educational achievements, as well as American products are
widely admired.
Another thing, of course, is American culture, music,
movies, television, and books, you name it, people in the
region are watching, listening and reading. And from the
popularity of Radio Sawa, I think the same can be said for
music. Several young people that I talked to in the Middle East
said that Radio Sawa has really neat songs and music, so they
turn the volume up when the songs are on, but some of them turn
it down when the news comes on because they think the news is
slanted, although many continue to listen.
Overall, the United States needs to foster positive images
of itself and of its motives abroad and use them to help
rebuild relations with the people of the Middle East. Right now
positive American values and images are not getting exported
nearly enough. The airwaves and newspapers in the Middle East
are full of stories of the United States trying to dominate the
region and to dictate its views upon the people of the Middle
East. They look at Iraq and ask if this is a war of freedom and
democracy or a fight for oil and hegemony. They wonder about
American commitment to freedom of speech when the CPA closes a
very small newspaper or seeks to constrain popular satellite
channels.
The United States needs a voice. They need many voices,
voices of moderation, voices that speak clearly and objectively
about the events in the Middle East and around the world. There
is not a panacea or a quick fix that will change sentiments all
at once. It will be a long process. I am not saying that you
will be able to reach everyone.
However, I would like to applaud your efforts, whether it
is through Alhurra and Radio Sawa or by reaching out to speak
to Middle East media or through other fora, to begin to bridge
the gap between the people of the region and the American
people.
Thank you again for allowing me to appear before you today.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Ghareeb follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Edmund Ghareeb
Thank you for inviting me to testify today. Let me start by saying
that right now there is a credibility gap between the United States and
the Middle East and due to recent events; this disparity is increasing
at a startling pace. Many times people in the Middle East will judge
the U.S. based solely on its foreign policy and how it affects them.
Now is the time the U.S. needs to reach out and try and close this
expanding gap. Through government officials, like you, the U.S. reaches
out to leaders in the Middle East. However, there is a constituency
that is much more important and we need to make every effort to reach
out to them--the people who live in the Middle East.
In the past, there have been different outreach projects to connect
with Middle Easterners, but they were specialized and could only reach
a specific segment of the population. Some excellent programs were also
undertaken by the USIA. Alhurra and Radio Sawa, the latest media
endeavors by Congress and the Broadcasting Board of Governors are the
most comprehensive initiative to reach the people of the Middle East,
without going through a government channel. Radio and satellite
television ownership has exploded in recent years and is quickly
becoming commonplace in many households in the Middle East. But, still
reaching people in the Middle East in their homes is by no means an
easy task.
Even before Alhurra was on the air, many newspapers and people in
the region said it would be a mouthpiece for the United States
government. In the months ahead Alhurra will have to prove itself over
and over again, by providing credible and objective news coverage and
analysis and by interviewing people who do not always agree with the
current administration and its policies.
Effective communication, however, requires taking your audience's
values, feelings and sense of identity into account. It is also not
enough to tell people what is on your mind. We have to also listen to
what is on their minds.
If Alhurra and Radio Sawa are able to prove that their news is
reliable and free of government influence, they will have a unique
opportunity to cover stories that put U.S. policies in context and
debate them freely. It bears repeating, however, there should be no
interference from the U.S. government. As you know, most Arab media
outlets are state run. They influence what is covered and how to cover
it. Consequently, people in the region are quite suspicious of their
official media. Furthermore, the Middle East is becoming saturated with
radio and TV channels as well as the growing influence of the Internet.
The information technology revolution, the CNN factor, and general
unhappiness with their own official media contributed to the rise of
the new Arab print and TV media. Today, in addition to the BBC and
Radio Monte Carlo, many Arabs are getting their news and entertainment
from channels such as Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, Al Hayat-LBC, Abu Dhabi,
Dubai, ANN, Future as well as Radio Orient, Orbit and Dream in addition
to their own government channels and to channels beamed from the
outside.
There have been several references in the news recently to the
allegation that media outlets such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya are
sparking the recent uprisings and encouraging people to take a stand
against Coalition forces. I want to take issue with that point. The
media that are in the region, like the U.S. media, mirror the feelings
and attitudes of their audiences. They place as much emphasis on
reflecting the emotions and the attitudes in the region, as they do the
events of the day. Yes, they may influence people, but the sentiment is
already there, they are not creating something out of nothing. That is
where Alhurra and Radio Sawa can have the biggest impact. They have the
opportunity to provide the region with a straightforward approach to
the news free of emotional coloration and innuendo.
When Alhurra started, an American journalist asked a Jordanian man
what he thought of the program he had just watched, and the man said it
was alright, that he had heard different people who represented a
spectrum of views on the program; but when told that Alhurra was
financed by the U.S. government, he decided the program was terrible;
the change in attitude was noticeable.
A serious problem likely to face media coverage is that, sometimes,
the same events mean different things to different audiences.
Presenting events only as they are seen through American eyes may
alienate Arabs and Muslims. To many Americans the fighters in Falluja
or Najaf are insurgents and terrorists. For many Iraqis and Muslims
they are resistance fighters and if they are killed they are martyrs.
When American forces in Iraq attack the insurgents in Falluja, it
is perceived by many Arabs and Muslims (because of collateral damage,
the death of women and children, innocent bystanders) as though the
U.S. is attacking Falluja, the city, and its inhabitants. When mosques
in the city broadcast prayers, appealing to God, under fire, it looks
like the U.S. is attacking Islam. These are emotionally charged
situations, and the emotions differ depending on whether one is an
Iraqi or an American. The challenge facing U.S. officials and U.S.
media today is that message are being broadcast from one side to the
other not just through the media but by the unspoken messages conveyed
by symbols and by pictures.
It is also important to remember that strong opposition exists in
the region to U.S. policies. Public diplomacy accompanied by a very
credible media performance by Radio Sawa and Alhurra will not, by
themselves, sway the majority of Arab and Muslim public opinion unless
they come to believe that U.S. policies are reflecting their own
concerns and aspirations for fairness, justice, a better way of life
and increased political participation.
I also think it is important to point out that, yes, the sentiment
against American policies is very strong right now, and our foreign
policy, particularly in Iraq and in the Israeli-Palestinian arena, is
at the heart of that. However, feelings towards the U.S. and the
American people are not all negative. When you talk to people in the
Middle East about personal freedom, democracy and values that Americans
enjoy it is something they admire and are intrigued by.
Another thing that is almost universally liked about America is our
pop culture. Music, movies, television and books--you name it and they
are watching, listening and reading it. A quick glance at any
television channel lineup or movie marquee and you are bound to find
``Friends'' or the latest blockbuster hit. And from the popularity of
Radio Sawa, I think the same can be said for music. Several young
people that I spoke to in the Middle East say that Radio Sawa has
really neat songs and music, so they turn the volume up when the songs
are on, but some turn it down when the news comes on because they feel
that the news is slanted.
The U.S. needs to foster positive images of itself and its motives
abroad and use them to help rebuild relations with the people of the
Middle East. Right now, positive American values and images are not
getting exported nearly enough. The airwaves and newspapers in the
Middle East are full of examples of the United States trying to
dominate the region and to dictate its views upon the people of the
Middle East. They look at Iraq and ask if this is a war for freedom and
democracy, or a fight for oil and hegemony? They wonder about American
commitment to the freedom of speech when the CPA closes a small
newspaper or seeks to constrain popular satellite channels.
The U.S. needs a voice out there that is a voice of moderation--to
speak clearly and objectively about the events in the Middle East and
around the world. There is not a panacea or quick fix that will change
sentiment all at once; it will be a long process. I am also not saying
that you will be able to reach everyone.
However, I would like to applaud your efforts, whether it is
through Alhurra and Radio Sawa, or by reaching out to speak to Middle
East media, to bridge the gap between the U.S. and the Middle East, and
to begin to narrow the gap between the people of the region and the
American people.
Thank you again for allowing me to appear before you today. I will
be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Senator Sununu. Thank you. Unfortunately, the length of
today's presentations have not left us with a great deal of
time for questions, but I would like to ask just a few.
First, Ambassador Rugh, you talk about your perception of
the difficulty in penetrating Arab markets with Alhurra. The
previous panel presented information, a recent survey as to the
number of satellite viewers that had watched Alhurra
programming in the past week, and at least in a number of
countries, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, it was over 35 percent, and
in several other countries, Syria, UAE, and Saudi Arabia, it
was 20 percent or even a little higher.
Are those good numbers? We would, obviously, like those to
be better. Is that a pleasant surprise to you after only 2
months of broadcasting and what do you think we should be
hoping for in this point in the process?
Ambassador Rugh. Mr. Chairman, I think those are good
numbers as far as they go. It is early in the history of
Alhurra. We do not know what the long term will be. The numbers
may be high possibly because of curiosity for a new medium. As
I tried to emphasize, it is considered a U.S. Government
broadcasting instrument, and American policy is the focus of
everybody's attention in the Middle East now. They want to know
what it is. They want to understand it. They are puzzled.
Everybody I talked to in the region says explain to me why our
policy is what it is. So there is interest and there is
enormous potential, but the potential has to be capitalized on
if we are going to maintain the market. We have to do quality
programming. We have to meet the expectations of the audience
or it is going to disappear.
Dr. Telhami. May I followup on this briefly?
Senator Sununu. Yes, you may. But I would like actually
each of our panelists to address the following question, and
doctor, you are welcome to talk about the perception as well.
The second question is to what extent have those of you who
have watched satellite TV broadcasts, especially those
broadcasts of government-owned stations in the region, how have
you seen or noticed those stations changing over the last
several years, first, with the advent of Al Jazeera, which was
certainly a different format, even though it was government-
funded, and second, with Alhurra? We will certainly begin with
you, Dr. Telhami.
Dr. Telhami. Thank you. Let me just say on the previous
question, because I am doing surveys actually about people
watching media. I have done one a year ago. I am doing that
now, and I will probably have some very good data on Alhurra
compared with others.
Mr. Pattiz was extremely careful to say these are
preliminary numbers because they were not systematic yet. For
example, the question may have been, have you ever watched
Alhurra? Which is a very different question from, do you
consistently watch it for the news? My suspicion is the numbers
of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya probably are 80 to 90 percent, and
the question that we usually ask, when we do a survey, to get
at whether a station has an impact or not, is we say, which is
your first choice for news, which is your second choice, which
is your third choice. We look at three choices. And then we
have, do you watch it once a week, twice a week, five times a
week? And we find the intensity, of course, is all that
matters. So it is too early to tell, obviously. It is strong,
but these numbers really cannot tell you yet the story.
Now, if you look at Al Jazeera--and I have been watching it
for a long time and I participate in some of these debates--in
my judgment, by and large, if you compare the media now, the
satellite phenomenon, with what existed in the Arab world a
decade ago, there is no question that it is far better than it
was and you get far more varieties of views than you did before
and it is far more accurate than it was a decade ago. It is
flawed and there are a lot of problems, and they are learning
through it, but there is no question in my mind that it is far
better than it was. There are some programs that are absolutely
superior. There are some programs that we would be proud to put
on our own television, including news programs. Al Arabiya has
an excellent discussion show with one of the leading
journalists here that has a variety of views that is a high-
quality discussion that we would be impressed with on our own
television. And they have others that we would not want to put
on our high-quality television. So overall, I think it has been
better, but it is certainly not perfect.
Senator Sununu. Ambassador Rugh.
Ambassador Rugh. Mr. Chairman, if I could add something on
the polls because you asked a very good question. I have not
seen the polls that have been referred to, but I think the best
poll that would give us good information about the
effectiveness of Alhurra and Radio Sawa as well would be to
take a poll at the time of a major event, for example, the
capture of Saddam Hussein or a speech by President Bush, and
see what channel the audiences select. It is not enough to say,
did you watch Alhurra this week, as Professor Telhami says. You
want to know what their choice was on a crucial issue like a
major political event, particularly in the Middle East. Are
they watching Alhurra for coverage of Fallujah? Are they
watching it for coverage of the West Bank and Gaza?
On the question of change over time, I agree completely
with Professor Telhami. It has been a dramatic change. The
pioneering role of Al Jazeera, which is way out ahead of the
others, has forced other broadcasting stations, even directly
government-controlled ones like Abu Dhabi television, to
improve the quality of their programming, the quality of their
reporting. We often in America focus on the discussion programs
and the commentaries, but the news reporting of Al Jazeera and
Al Arabiya is outstanding. Unless Alhurra can match that,
nobody is going to watch.
Senator Sununu. Ambassador Rugh, I think in some previous
testimony, you talk about producing programs for placement on
other stations, local stations throughout the Arab world. If
that approach were pursued, do you think it likely that the
governments would give us access on stations for the kind of
programming, either balanced programming or even programming
that might be critical of these governments? Is it realistic to
expect that we would get placement?
Ambassador Rugh. I think yes, Mr. Chairman. I think
particularly those satellite stations that are competing for
market share like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. We can get access
to them. Professor Telhami has been on them. Professor Ghareeb
has been on them. I have been on them. They do not ban American
comments, and the more Americans to participate, the better,
and they welcome them. I know that for a fact. American
officials ought to speak more on television.
As far as placement goes, as a public affairs officer in
Egypt in Saudi Arabia and other places, I found it fairly easy
to place good material on local programs. Now, if it was a
program that directly criticized the host government for
corruption, they might not take it, but if it is a well-
produced program, yes, they will take it. This is a hungry
medium that needs material and they will take our material too.
Senator Sununu. Dr. Ghareeb, what do you think about the
value or the efficacy of taking privately produced media
broadcasts, whether it is on a major station like CNN or MSNBC,
Fox, et cetera, and translating that? Are Arab translations of
American programming of value or interest in the channels or
the outlets we have been speaking of?
Dr. Ghareeb. First, let me comment briefly on the role of
the new media in the Arab world. I think it has revolutionized
the way people receive their information and their news. They
have forced government media to lift the ceiling on debate and
discussion. We are seeing discussion of issues that have been
taboo, as Ambassador Rugh said earlier, issues that have to do
with the Arab-Israeli conflict, that have to do with sex, that
have to do with religion, secularism, Kurdish nationalism, and
numerous other issues.
There is no doubt that the record is mixed. On the one
hand, they have raised this debate. On the other hand, they
have not brought about the changes that a lot of people thought
that they were going to do, that they were going to increase
democratization and political participation because the
government still owns some of these channels and we do not see
a real demand for accountability when it comes to issues
dealing with domestic problems, domestic corruption, questions
of the budget, for example. These are not focused on enough. In
fact, some people think that the media have transformed the
audiences where there is now an audience lethargy. People sort
of participate vicariously through the media instead of trying
to bring about changes of the government.
As to the types of American programs which could be
translated, if they could be translated well, some of them
could perhaps find an audience in the Arab world. For example,
I think something like the Lehrer News Hour might be an
excellent program. I think that program would also have an
audience in the Arab world. But at the same time, I do not
think you can use all programs because the values here are very
important. The way you communicate with people in the Middle
East is a little different from communicating with people in
the United States.
And this is in part the problem of U.S. officials because
if you take a look at Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya and many others,
you will find that American officials often appear on these
channels regularly. Sometimes I have seen President Bush
speaking on Al Jazeera or on Al Arabiya. They were airing a
speech live while it was not being aired on American
television. But the problem sometimes is that the message is
not well understood over there. The values are different and
that is something that has to be taken into account.
Senator Sununu. Mr. Ford, from your testimony, I get the
impression that the BBG has been somewhat responsive in dealing
with recommendations having to do with overlap and revisiting
the format or the structure of its language services. Are there
any areas or any recommendations that the GAO has made where
the BBG response has been lacking or has been slower than you
would hope?
Mr. Ford. I would not say that they responded negatively to
our recommendations. I think some of them are issues related to
whether they have resources to implement more surveys, to have
a better understanding of whether they are actually meeting
their goals, whether the audience they are trying to meet is
actually getting the message. Some of that is a resource issue.
Some of it is because, as I mentioned earlier, they are trying
to manage many other broadcast operations, it is a challenge
for them to try to come up with an efficient approach to
optimize their resources. So those kinds of issues are the ones
where they generally agree that they need to do that, but the
process of them implementing those things is taking some time.
Senator Sununu. Thank you.
I want to thank each of the panelists. You have been very
patient with your time, and I look forward to revisiting this
issue as Alhurra and the BBG continue their mission.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:54 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned, to
reconvene subject to the call of the Chair.]