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BACK TO : PROPAGANDA AND THE GWOT Year 4 - 2005
The VOA is being drowned out by a mix of pop-flavored propaganda by Corey Pein 
The New Wave - The Voice of America is being drowned out by a mix of pop-flavored propaganda. What should America sound like? By Corey Pein, Columbia Journalism Review, May-June 2005 Even as insiders fear it could be muted, the Voice of America can find few friends at home, where it needs them. Which is not entirely surprising, since many American journalists think of it as a mere propaganda outlet, while many in government - particularly those of a hawkish bent - see the network as a $158 million albatross that combines the worst of the private-sector press (liberal reporters) and the federal bureaucracy (career civil servants). These caricatures owe much to the fact that one doesn't hear the Voice within U.S. borders. They are mostly wrong. The Voice does run government-line editorials, but its news is similar in tone and substance to that of The Associated Press, with a sound that echoes a mid-size National Public Radio affiliate. The thousand-strong staff of the Voice includes serious journalists who are emphatic about the agency's code, which mandates editorial independence and fair treatment for all points of view. Its advocates see a straightforward journalistic approach as the best possible demonstration of American values in a time when the nation's popularity is slipping around the world. But particularly in the Middle East, the Voice is being supplanted by a new model, something closer to MTV than the BBC. Voice people are nervous about the future of journalism at their network, some fearing it will be replaced by pure propaganda. On paper, this should be a boom time for the Voice. The Bush administration proposed upping by $60 million the $592 million international broadcasting budget next year, and adding new programming in Persian, Pashtu, Urdu, and other "critical war-on-terrorism languages." Chided by the 9/11 Commission for ceding too much ground to Osama bin Laden in a "war of ideas," foreign policy types have a new enthusiasm for "public diplomacy" over the airwaves. Indeed, how Arabs and Muslims feel about the United States, and vice versa, could determine whether we will measure the current wars in years or in generations. Despite the windfall, the number of hours and frequencies devoted to English-language programming by the Voice have declined dramatically in recent years. Alan Heil, a retired deputy director of the Voice who published a history of the network in 2003, says that for all practical purposes, the global English-language service is finished. "They've been cutting it to ribbons, so now you only have a strong presence in East Asia and Africa. It's slightly weaker in South Asia, dark in Europe and Latin America." And in 2002, the Voice's Arabic service was axed entirely. It was replaced by the music and headlines of Radio Sawa (meaning, "together"), and, in 2004, a television network called Al Hurra (for "The Free One," though, because of an unfortunate near-homonym, hurayrah, it's known to some as "the kitten network"). The old Arabic service cost $4 million in its last year. Next year's budget calls for nearly $80 million for Sawa and Al Hurra. The new operations were pitched as models for future international broadcasts. Like the Voice, they ultimately answer to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an appointed body of four Democrats and four Republicans plus the secretary of state. If Edward R. Murrow - who ran the U.S. Information Agency for President John F. Kennedy - is the grandfather of overseas broadcasting, Sawa and Al Hurra seem like estranged young relatives. The new networks are the brainchildren of a board member, Norman J. Pattiz, who made his name building Westwood One, the commercial radio giant. A California Democrat and Clinton appointee, his vision for overseas broadcasting has nonetheless found eager patrons in the Bush administration*. Pattiz believes in steering young Arabs away from "hate media," using pop culture as the draw. "They're attracted by the music, but that's not what we're there for," Pattiz says. The networks exist, he says, to present views of U.S. policy not found in the Arab media. "Our mission is a journalistic mission." Between the Arabic pop ballads and old Bryan Adams hits that fill up three-quarters of its airtime, Sawa is supposed to be a credible information source, just like the Voice. But whereas the old Voice Arabic service earned a measure of respect among the region's seekers of serious news - the noted Middle East scholar Juan Cole called it "among the best and most extensive providers of news and discussion programs in the Arab world" - the regional media have received Sawa and Al Hurra with scoffs and sneers. Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian-American journalist and activist, spent a day in 2002 monitoring Sawa on a trip to Jordan. Where the BBC reported on civilian casualties and a huge rise in child malnutrition in the occupied territories, Abunimah wrote, Sawa highlighted official Israeli pronouncements and reports on corruption in the Palestinian Authority. It's tough to independently assess Sawa content from afar, but program summaries and interview transcripts from the State Department help. Sometimes, the questions asked by Sawa correspondents are more revealing than the answers: Can you please state what is our stated policy towards the fence that the Israelis are building right now? What is the U.S. going to do, in order to swipe away this illusion and this fear of the Arabs and the Iraqis of something called the "U.S. occupation," which is not really what the U.S. is doing in Iraq? Iraqis accustomed to road checkpoints and house-by-house raids may not easily be convinced that they are living through an "illusion" of occupation. And whatever "our" policy is, "fence" is a loaded term for the concrete wall snaking through Israel and Palestine. Pattiz holds that the success of Sawa and Al Hurra - and their journalistic quality - is demonstrated by the size of the audience, which he puts at a combined 40 million to 50 million. But others question those numbers, as well as the idea that Arabs prefer the new American networks to Arab networks. (By way of comparison, Al Jazeera's audience is generally put at 30 million to 50 million.) "We've got reams of audience research from independent, reliable sources," Pattiz says, "and all I hear from our detractors is anecdotal evidence." But perhaps that's because the board of governors has kept unfriendly studies out of public view. Last October, The Washington Post reported that the board was delaying release of a highly critical State Department audit of Sawa. A copy of the draft obtained by CJR reveals that the report's harshest findings were scrubbed. It faulted Sawa for failing to comply with the VoA charter, which mandates an "accurate, objective, and comprehensive source of news" that presents U.S. policies "clearly and effectively." The audit cited sloppy hiring practices, frequent mistranslations (alluding to an infamous Sawa blooper, a reference to Secretary of State "Colin Bowel"), and a heavy Lebanese tilt that turned off listeners in other countries. A section titled "No Basis for BBG's Claim That Radio Sawa Is the Leading International Broadcaster" was deleted entirely. So was the blunt conclusion of one expert commissioned to assess the network: "America can do better than this." Pattiz contends that the draft was so poorly done that the State Department "wouldn't dare put it out." He refused, however, to share the board of governors' written objections to the draft. Mamoun Fandy, a fellow at the James Baker Institute who has advised the State Department on public diplomacy, contends that Sawa is not a credible source of information. "The elements of a news story are not there," Fandy says, citing Sawa's failure to identify its announcers and cite its sources, and its lack of on-site coverage. "It comes across as propagandistic and lacking in professionalism." The year-old Al Hurra draws similar complaints from the Arab press. Arab journalists say it employs too many Lebanese nationals and foolishly sticks to a regular schedule of nature documentaries and cooking shows, even during important events like last year's tsunami and the killing of the head of Hamas. Six months after the station's launch, Tariq Al Humayd, the editor of the pan-Arab paper Asharq al-Awsat, which has shown more sympathy to America's presence in the region than others, lamented Al Hurra's sorry state: "We hoped that Al Hurra would emerge as the voice of reason and a source of information and investigative reports at the level of those produced by the U.S. media. The last thing we expected was that the United States would try to sell us its bad goods." Mamoun Fandy argues that Al Hurra undercuts America's proclaimed hopes for the Middle East by failing to promote free speech and women's rights. Amid all this, is there room left for "old-fashioned" (as Pattiz describes the Voice) journalism? Voice correspondents have historically felt some pressure to advocate for U.S. policy, but under the current administration, the pressure is barely disguised. The current Voice director, David Jackson, is a former Time reporter who left in 2001 to create the Pentagon's p.r. Web site, DefendAmerica.gov. In 2004 he demoted the Voice's popular news director, Andre deNesnera, who shortly after 9/11 had broadcast an interview with a Taliban leader. The interview led many, including William Safire of The New York Times, to attack the Voice on the ground that this was not the time to know thine enemy. (DeNesnera declined to comment for this story, saying he was "out of the loop.") Last July, nearly half of the Voice's staff signed a petition protesting deNesnera's removal "after years of fighting to maintain VoA's high journalistic standards," and pleading for Congress to review the BBG's embrace of "taxpayer-funded, pop-music networks." It failed to get much response. Since then, morale has hit bottom. In March, President George W. Bush nominated his longtime adviser Karen Hughes to serve as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. Her plans for international broadcasting aren't public knowledge, but she is a relentless spinmeister who has not earned a reputation for sympathizing with the journalistic mission. On April 7, network chiefs told employees that work done by the overnight shift of the central news service, which compiles correspondents' reports and wire copy for all of the Voice's forty-four language services, would be shipped off to the Hong Kong bureau. Voice correspondents have also grumbled about censorship. Specific cases include being discouraged from showing images of Abu Ghraib, or covering the recent federal practice of distributing fake news reports to domestic television stations. Government-supported broadcasters like the Voice bear a stamp of approval from U.S. taxpayers. In that sense, its name can be taken literally. Nancy Snow, a propaganda expert at USC's Annenberg School for Communication who has advised the government on public diplomacy, is among those who argue that if the Voice were strengthened with editorial staff and expanded frequencies, it could eventually match the BBC's stature around the world. Condoleezza Rice has expressed some nostalgia for the cold war-era Voice, but correspondents are skeptical. "They want everyone to die off or leave," a source at the Voice said. Barring some help from Congress, such gloom is probably justified. * In the print version of CJR, this article incorrectly states that Norman J. Pattiz donates money to Mother Jones magazine. Pattiz donates to many organiziations, but Mother Jones - which reported on his donations to the Democratic party - is not one of them. CJR regrets the error. Corey Pein is an assistant editor at CJR. |