Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : PROPAGANDA AND THE GWOT Year 3 - 2004 (mainly Iraq)
US-Funded Al-Hurra TV Begins Broadcast by Zeina Karam 
US-Funded Al-Hurra TV Begins Broadcast Zeina Karam Associated Press, Arab News BEIRUT, 15 February 2004 - A satellite television station financed by the US government launched broadcasts aimed at Arab viewers yesterday with an exclusive interview with US President George W. Bush in which he praised Iraqi determination to achieve democracy. Al-Hurra, or The Free One, began broadcasting at 1500 GMT with a short videotape showing windows being opened - a signal of freedom. The station's first item was a news briefing that began with yesterday's attack on an Iraqi police station west of Baghdad in which 21 people were killed. In the interview with the US-based station, Bush said he was optimistic about the future of Iraq and said Iraqis were taking serious steps toward achieving democracy. "We have not been in Iraq for one year and already there has been enormous progress. Among the things I find important is that people have started to talk about achieving democracy. If these voices had appeared last year or the before... their voices might have ceased to exist," he said, according to an Arabic voiceover translation. "Today a free society has started to float to the surface," he said, adding that he was optimistic about what is happening in Iraq. Bush said Washington is looking forward to cooperation with the United Nations in an attempt to restore peace in Iraq. The TV station broadcast only a few excerpts of Bush's recorded interview. With Al-Hurra, the US administration hopes to counter what Bush has called "hateful propaganda that fills the airwaves in the Muslim world," referring to Qatar- and Emirates-based Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya networks. But Al-Hurra came under fire from skeptics even before broadcasts began. "Can a good television station cover up (America's) bad policy in the Middle East?" asked a report in Lebanon's leading An-Nahar daily this week. Nabil Amro, former Palestinian information minister, said in an interview with Al-Arabiya earlier yesterday that Al-Hurra would not improve the US image in the Middle East "unless there is a change in the US policy" toward the region. Al-Hurra is broadcast from the Washington area but with facilities in several capitals, including Baghdad, and a largely Arab staff. It will at first broadcast 14 hours a day, building up to 24-hour programming within a month. The station, costing about $62 million in its first year, promises a balanced approach. US condemnation has recently focused on the Qatar- and Emirates-based Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya networks. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has branded both stations "violently anti-coalition" and accused them of turning Arabs against America and damaging US interests in Iraq. "We are being hurt by Al-Jazeera in the Arab world," Rumsfeld told journalists in Germany earlier this month. "There is no question about it. The quality of the journalist is outrageous - inexcusably biased - and there is nothing you can do about it except try to counteract it." But the early suspicion and skepticism show the station has a long road to winning some Arab hearts and minds and luring viewers away from the popular all-news Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. Al-Hurra is the latest US government project trying to reach out directly to Arabs in other ways, most recently through the Arabic-language Radio Sawa, also overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and a slick Arabic-English magazine, "hi," which shies away from politics to inform the Arab world of American culture and life. |