Iraqis Shun U.S. Propaganda TV Channel

by Gregory D. Johnsen

(PNS) -- The expensive, new U.S. television channel aimed at Arabs in this part of the world, looks like a bust. Since beginning February 14, the station's limited broadcasting time, tacky promos, and documentaries in English with clumsy Arabic subtitles, have all contributed to a growing sense of disappointment among viewers with the latest, and most expensive, U.S. overture to the Arab world.

Al-Hurra, which translates to "the Free One" in Arabic, has a first year budget of $62 million, and is designed to be a 24-hour "accurate, balanced, and comprehensive" Arabic-language news network. Despite its current broadcast schedule of only 14 hours a day, with many programs repeated numerous times, the station should be at 24-hours-a-day strength by March 14.

But for many here the first impression has been one of hubris and ignorance. It took the new al-Hurra television channel less than 15 minutes to lose the support of one young Yemeni. After watching interviews with President Bush and Norman Pattiz, head of the U.S. agency overseeing the station, on the first day of broadcasting, 24-year old Amar al-Audi, had seen enough. "It is just like everything America does, they say every other Arab station is wrong and they are right," he said.

This wasn't the message President Bush was trying to convey to the Arab world. But with promos that feature men and women opening doors and windows onto a rising sun, close-ups of a series of eyes that are opening for what appears to be the first time, and, strangely, a group of horses galloping together through the snow until they stop to drink at a spring, that is the message that is getting through.

The station is intended as an alternative to other pan-Arab news stations like al-Jazeera and al-Arabbiyya, which the United States has long accused of an anti-American slant in reporting. According to President Bush, al-Hurra will cut through this "hateful propaganda that fills the airwaves in the Muslim world," and promote debate in the region.

Al-Hurra's website, www.alhurra.com,says the station is "a commercial-free Arabic-language satellite television network for the Middle East devoted primarily to news and information." But it will also feature more general programs focusing on health, personal fitness, sports, fashion, and science and technology.

What isn't mentioned on the website, however, is that a number of these programs will be in English with only Arabic subtitles, a problem for the large number of Arabs, especially Arab women, who remain illiterate.

Nor are cooking shows, stories on the Detroit car show, or segments on the U.S. Super Bowl, necessarily what the Arab world expected when Bush announced the birth of "the Free One." While al-Hurra is often left broadcasting what sometimes look like infomercials in English, its competitors are showing the news in Arabic.

For instance, on its program "Destination World" on February 20, al-Hurra broadcast an English documentary with Arabic subtitles on Hindu warriors and Indian gurus with Hollywood connections, while in the same time slot al-Arabbiyya was showing a story on the U.S. presidential race, and al-Jazeera was interviewing Palestinians in the West Bank.

But programming is not the only problem plaguing the fledgling news channel; credibility has also been a sticking point with its target audience.

U.S. funding of al-Hurra has raised eyebrows around the Middle East, with many of its critics wondering if it can be anything other than a flashy American version of the state-run news media throughout the region.

The issue of credibility is one that al-Hurra has been keen to address, and from the beginning it has been on the defensive. Within minutes of going on the air, al-Hurra broadcast portions of an exclusive interview with President Bush as well as an interview with Norman Pattiz, who heads the Middle East committee of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the agency that is overseeing the project.

Pattiz said that al-Hurra would maintain editorial independence despite its ties to the U.S. government and stressed the fact that it was the American people, through Congress, who were funding the station.

This sentiment has struck a chord with a few Yemenis like Abdu al-Awda, a local clerk, who says he enjoys the channel for the "picture of America" that it gives. But most here seem to view al-Hurra as nothing more than U.S. propaganda. Nor are they alone. Throughout the Arab world the reaction to al-Hurra has been overwhelmingly negative.

The majority of the critics claim that they don't want an explanation of the "values and the policies of the United States," which President Bush promised al-Hurra would deliver, but rather a change in those policies.

For the moment at least, it seems that the U.S. and the Arab world are once again talking past each other, with neither taking the time to listen.