http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/newsroom/worldcast_main en USC Center on Public Diplomacy Copyright 2006 2006-03-09T19:33:00+00:00 #When:19:33:00Z An estimated 28.8 million bloggers publish on the Internet, while by comparison there are only a paltry 2,500 U.S. daily and Sunday newspapers published. As blogging grows and matures, it needs to confront an ethical issue, as its senior ink-to-paper colleagues have, where free trips and other gratuities are offered by those who would likely expect a return on their investment. Print journalists have strict policy guidelines to help keep their objectivity and integrity intact and to control potential conflicts of interest. Nevertheless, many still take their junkets, especially plentiful in the entertainment and tourism fields. But individual bloggers who don't have publishing or broadcast organizations to foot the bills are often on their own. One of the most controversial recent events in the blogosphere was the 2nd Annual Al Jazeera Forum in Qatar in February, where at least 100 blogger-delegates had all travel and accommodation costs covered, courtesy of their host sponsor. Another instance involved 25 bloggers who were hired by Holland's tourist bureau to fly to Amsterdam, stay in a five-star hotel and tour the city with an unlimited credit card. And, oh yes, the bloggers might decide also to write about the great tourist destination, but were not obligated to do so. Daniel Glover in his Beltway Blogroll was highly critical. "No one who makes the trip is compelled to write one word, good or bad, about Amsterdam and maybe some bloggers will return home and say nasty things about the place. But somehow I doubt they will." He also felt bloggers who took expense-paid trips to the Al Jazeera conference ought to have been more transparent with their readers on disclosing gratuities they received. The online news association Cyber Journalist suggested adopting ethical guidelines, but acknowledged that "since not all bloggers are journalists and the Weblog form is more casual, they [bloggers] argue they shouldn't be expected to follow the same ethics codes journalists are. But responsible bloggers should recognize that they are publishing words publicly, and therefore have certain ethical obligations to their readers, the people they write about, and society in general." Policies of the larger news organizations are strict on acceptance of gifts from news sources. The San Francisco Chronicle advises its journalists: "No freebies….reduced-rate transportation, gifts, or junkets from current or potential news sources, including…agents of another country." The CBS policy states that "employees shall not accept free transportation, accommodations, services or gifts…to avoid compromising their journalistic independence, but also so as to avoid the appearance of such compromise." But one mainstream journalist, who wished to remain anonymous, cut bloggers some slack. "For journalists from less well-funded organizations…free travel and accommodation may make all the difference between being able to attend events or not." But, he added, "journalists who benefit from paid travel or accommodations should reveal this in their writing." Former New York Times and CBS News correspondent Bernard Kalb agreed that "if you do go the paid-for route, then obviously you add the alert that in fact the sponsor took care of the bill." But few disclosed to their readers that the sponsor of the 2nd Annual Al Jazeera Forum funded the trips. The theme for the event was "Defending Freedom, Defining Responsibility," but Guardian reporter Julia Day wrote that the forum "has been used to help launch the channel's [English-language] international channel." At least one blog obliquely informed readers that he was "flown out" to Al Jazeera's forum along with about 100 others, who traveled business class. Al Jazeera's press and public relations office did not return numerous telephone and e-mail inquiries to elaborate on the trip arrangements such as exactly how many were provided free transportation and lodging in the Sheraton Hotel. The BBC and most other mainstream media chose not to attend the session. A source who wished to remain anonymous said, "The BBC's official policy – which I personally agree with – is that it would not accept the payment of airfares or hotel accommodation associated with attending or covering a conference like the recent Al Jazeera event. Even if a BBC person was speaking at the event, the BBC would still insist on paying its employee's expenses at the event." Otherwise, he said, the recipient would be placed under a perceived obligation. Of course, there were those who funded their own trips, or whose organizations picked up the tab. It must also be pointed out that panelists engaged in sharp discussions, especially on the issue of whether the U.S. media have lost their direction. Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute told Worldcasting that it would be acceptable to receive transportation and housing if one were asked to appear on a panel discussion at a conference, and to later report about that panel. However, it would be unethical to "double dip" and report on other activities at the event without disclosing that the sponsor paid for the reporter's trip. Two bloggers who are also academics said they do a combined total of at least three dozen expenses-paid appearances per year. Professor Marc Lynch, who wrote about the Al Jazeera conference in his blog Abu Aardvark, believes his ethics are in tact because "travel and accommodations plus a small honorarium is the absolute norm for academics giving talks. It isn't the least bit controversial, and 'ethics' doesn't arise at all….I give a dozen talks a year, and every one offers the same – the only variation is the size of the honorarium." Lynch spoke on panels at the event and his travel and accommodations were also picked up by Al Jazeera. He said he blogged about the forum without informing his readers about the arrangement "because I was there, and it was interesting. I can't for my life imagine any reason why I wouldn't have. That's kind of the point of blogging – you do interesting things, and you write about it." Ethan Zuckerman, another forum panelist and research fellow at Harvard Law School 's Berkman Center for Internet and Security, received free transportation and lodging. "I speak several dozen times a year. I generally try to minimize the amount of travel I pay out of my own pocket, which means I usually ask conference organizers to pay my travel and hotel rooms," he said. McBride agreed that "academics have very different standards than journalists. So you end up with two sets of standards, one for the 'professionals' and one for everyone else. That's why I think transparency is so important. If the audience can at least discern which writers are financially independent in their pursuit of topics and who might have a conflict of loyalties." Blogger-critic Daniel Glover countered that "Too many public affairs bloggers are interested only in condemning the ethical lapses of others, especially journalists and politicians. "Those bloggers won't even consider the possibility that as they gain access and influence, their own ethics could be compromised. Even worse, they ridicule and attempt to ostracize anyone who dares suggest that bloggers may be susceptible to manipulation, whether knowingly or unknowingly. That's exactly the kind of hubris that ultimately leads to ethical breaches and outright corruption." Daniel Glover believes bloggers "should be talking amongst themselves to try to establish some norms, and I don't get the sense that many of them are or want to." As more bloggers begin to publish on the Internet, and as some become better established with large readership, an organization such as the Poynter Institute might be enlisted for guidance. It has an ethics adviser on call at an 800 number, and its advice on blogger transparency should be heeded. 2006-03-09T19:33:00+00:00 #When:18:40:57Z The flight purser came back to where Fred Friendly was seated to tell him that his friend Edward R. Murrow had died an hour earlier. The plane had just cleared the Irish coast on a flight from London to New York, and the news about Murrow had been radioed from Shannon control with instructions to tell Friendly. It was April 27, 1965. Friendly recalled in a Columbia Records album we later prepared about Murrow, that “the message was only confirmation of what Ed and his friends had expected for months.” Edward R. Murrow smoked three packs of unfiltered Camel cigarettes every day, and died at age 57 from cancer that spread from his lungs to his brain. I thought of Friendly’s remarks when I watched the movie Good Night, and Good Luck, which has been nominated for six Academy Awards. George Clooney, who directed the movie and plays the role of Fred Friendly, does not entirely capture the dynamism of the real Fred Friendly I knew, nor David Straithairn the Edward R. Murrow that no one could ever duplicate. I was not with Murrow and Friendly and their See it Now staff on March 9, 1954, when their program took on Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was ruining lives in his witch hunt for suspected Communists. I was in college, but had my sights on CBS News long before I graduated. And because I did wind up at CBS News - I was on staff from the late 1950s through the entire next decade - the movie resonates with me in certain ways. My wife and I identify with two CBS News staffers portrayed in the movie. See it Now producer and reporter Joe Wershba, played by Robert Downey Jr., and writer Shirley Wershba, played by Patricia Clarkson, had married but tried to keep it secret because CBS News policy at the time forbade married couples from working in the same company division. Anne Glassman, a production assistant at CBS News, and I, a writer and producer, married while we were both at CBS News in 1961, and, like Joe Wershba, I stayed on at the network because my salary was greater than Anne's, a situation more commonplace then than now in the business world. Friendly became President of CBS News in 1964, and every story had to be airtight accurate, with all the facts on the table and no secrets, the way it was when he and Murrow went after Senator McCarthy almost 10 years earlier. Friendly had a New Yorker magazine cartoon framed on the wall near his desk, that he would point to when necessary, depicting a young blond woman, together with a man marooned on an island with a single palm tree. She says “I’ll know. That’s who!” No con job from a reporter or producer was permitted by Friendly, who wanted nothing kept from him. As he paced the room like a bear, he would confront a producer after something went wrong on the news, pounding his fist into his palm. “I want to know the name of the telephone man in the manhole who cut that…. telephone line,” he would bellow. He didn’t whisper, wimp, and wisecrack like George Clooney’s Fred Friendly, he would get right in your face. I used to watch Murrow nervously pump his foot while reading the news, as David Straithairn did in the movie, but Murrow had a rich timber in his voice unmatched by Strathairn, whose head is too small and body too slight to have captured Murrow’s commanding presence. No actor could do a perfect Murrow, who, as Time magazine noted in a cover story about Murrow, reads “like he knows the worst but will try not to mention it.” But perhaps even Murrow, whose salary was somewhere in excess of $300,000 per year, would have done a double take upon learning that NBC’s Katie Couric is paid $15,000,000 annually. Shortly after Murrow died, Friendly asked me to “prepare” a record album of Murrow’s wartime broadcasts, as I did with CBS News colleague Sheldon Hoffman. Friendly intentionally used the word “prepare,” because Murrow was the producer of the album, he said, and we were simply preparing his material. Friendly wanted the recordings to be played in "their original 15 or 20 minutes because that's what brought their original impact." While collecting Murrow’s broadcasts over a period of more than a year, mostly from BBC archives and old glass-based record disks at CBS, I came across his earliest radio reports from London, where he had been sent by CBS to set up its business office in Europe in the mid-1930s. He was not initally sent to do news broadcasts, which he began only as Hitler invaded Europe. In his first reports, Murrow did not sound anything like the Murrow that would report later from London about the war to audiences in the United States and Britain. He had received voice coaching critiques from a former drama instructor at the University of North Carolina, who taught him how to dramatically pause: “This – is London,” and “Good night – and good luck.” In the Columbia album that we prepared, “A Reporter Remembers,” which Friendly insisted that each new CBS news correspondent listen to in its entirety before filing his or her first piece, Friendly wrote that “Murrow hated obituaries, yet to my certain knowledge would have liked to be judged by the record of his reporting. This album is part of that record.” Murrow would not have much cared that his record album reports won a Grammy award, but it may have caused him to nod that his war reports likely influenced yournger CBS correspondents who came on after he died. After Friendly resigned from CBS News as its president in 1966 because the network cut away from Senate hearings on Vietnam for re-runs of “I Love Lucy,” he tried to right a wrong that is all-too apparent in Good Night and Good Luck; there were few minorities on the news staff. Friendly became a journalism professor at Columbia University in New York City, where he would attract promising young Black and Hispanic news broadcasters and help to teach them new skills. He would call me at CBS each semester with a list of his most promising young students, and I would come over to interview them, several of whom we hired for staff positions at WCBS-TV, the network’s flagship station in New York City. Good Night and Good Luck is an impressive effort and an important story, but it does not do justice to its main characters or their invaluable contribution to the news business; it is unlikely that any film could. 2006-02-27T18:40:57+00:00 #When:21:21:01Z Cultural and educational exchange programs are effective public diplomacy tools because they enrich both those who go abroad and the societies they visit. Right? That good intention may not be the primary motivation behind the au pair childcare program the United States facilitates. This mismanaged program is being exploited and turned into more of a profitable business than cultural experience. Au pair, French for "on par," means that the young person is on par with the American family. Young women ages 18-26 come from all around the world to care for children, become part of an American family and go to school. Meanwhile, there is an interaction between the international visitor and the hosts where each side stands to benefit from the experience. When the program was founded in 1986, the U.S. Information Agency supervised it as an Educational and Cultural exchange. From the beginning, the program lacked supervision and needed stronger regulations. The biggest complaint from current au pair families is the inadequacy of the government-sanctioned sponsor agencies, which recruit, screen, train and place au pairs with American families. Tracy Huber of West Milford, N.J., said she is happy with her present au pair, "but had to weed through a nightmare to get to this place." She and other families tried several au pairs "in a short period of time to find a suitable au pair for the children, with no support [from sponsors] once fees are locked in." Another family complained that their children "have seen five very flaky people come and go from our home." Lisa Thostenson of Inver Grove Heights, Minn., said the same sponsoring agency matched her with three unsuitable au pairs. Although au pairs must be able to drive, "one girl was blind in one eye," said Thostenson, and "unable to drive safely; this was not disclosed." Another refused to watch the children, and not all of them spoke English, in which they are required to be proficient. "My son, who is 8, told [the au pair] he was going to play with his friend in the neighborhood," Thostenson said. "When I noticed he was gone, I asked her where he was and she had no idea…also not a clue when he was planning to return." Before the USIA was disbanded and control of the au pair program was handed over to the State Department, it attempted to rein in the program by raising the minimum age and shortening the au pair’s childcare workweek as well as requiring them to attend class. Congress appeared reluctant to consider any changes in the popular program. Additionally, one major au pair-sponsoring agency lobbied against the shorter work week. The lax laws have allowed the agencies to continue making money on a flawed product. In 1992, 7,287 Western European au pairs came to the United States. Host families paid a fee of $3,500 to the agency separate from the au pair’s weekly wages. At that time, placing au pairs was a $25.5 million business. Today, there are nearly twice as many au pairs per year – 14,000 from all around the world – and the growth is reflected in the sponsors' annual fee – around $6,500. These agencies run a $91 million business and facilitate the largest childcare organization in the country. Stiffer regulations were adopted after an 18-year old au pair from Britain, part of the U.S.-administered program, was convicted in 1997 of killing an 8-month-old boy in her care, but the Department of State still does not hold agencies accountable for au pairs that do not meet job requirements. Rather, it warns families that "having an international visitor in one’s home, and as part of the family, can be difficult for families and the au pair," and that sponsor organizations cannot guarantee the competency of the au pair. It cautions au pair families "to read the small print of your contract with the sponsor agency." It seems families only stand for this because of the cost incentive of hiring an au pair over a domestic nanny. Huber, who shared her experiences with other au pair families on the Internet, said, "The reason these programs are so popular is because the lack of affordable childcare is like an epidemic in this country…$24,000 in daycare a year is just not affordable for us." The annual total cost for an au pair is about $16,000 per year, while a professional nanny can cost about $10,000 more than that. Au pairs are paid a $139.05 weekly stipend by families. By comparison, "the average compensation for nannies who work a 45-50 hour week is $350-$600 per week," said Kathleen Webb, president of Home Work Solutions, Inc., a professional nanny agency. "There are many $30,000-$50,000 [per year] professional nannies in the upscale urban markets," and this salary excludes the unemployment and social security taxes the family must cover when employing a domestic nanny. But Myrna Alphonse, a career nanny for 16 years, thinks the cost can be worth the continuity a long-term nanny offers a child; the au pair program is only one year, so families experience frequent turnover. Today, the au pair workweek remains at a maximum of 45 hours per week, and au pairs from ages 18 to 26 may still participate in the program. They must now complete 6 hours of academic study, and cannot be placed in a home where there is an infant less than three months "unless a parent or other responsible adult is at home." They are also required to receive "at least 8 hours of child safety and 24 hours of child development instruction" before being placed with an American family. Despite these requirements, the State Department must become even more involved with the oversight of a rapidly growing childcare program. Au pairs should be at least 21 years of age and the agencies must be held accountable for training that right now is poor to non-existent, according to numerous disgruntled au pair families. The State Department should grade sponsors based on surveys of au pair family experiences and post those grades on the government’s au pair Web site. Families can then select the most popular and best-qualified au pair sponsors. And finally, the department must show a strong commitment to making this primarily a cultural exchange program rather than a moneymaking one. Neither childcare nor American public diplomacy is something the U.S. government needs to scrimp on. 2006-02-22T21:21:01+00:00 #When:01:12:56Z Al Jazeera held its “2nd Aljazeera Forum” Jan. 31 through Feb. 2 in its headquarter city of Doha, Qatar. The conference was titled “Defending Freedom, Defining Responsibility,” but its goal seemed to be to trash U.S. media and celebrate everything Al Jazeera. Part of the agenda of this year’s conclave was apparently to promote the oft-delayed launch of Al Jazeera International’s (AJI) new English-language service, now pushed back to May, and to quash stories that the new channel is distancing itself from the home Arabic channel. Prior to the meeting, AJI had stated specifically in its press information that it would have editorial autonomy, but, seemingly in an act of self-promotion, both AJI and Al Jazeera Arabic officials were “singing a different tune,” Professor Marc Lynch wrote in his blog from the conference. “[They] talked at great length about how much editorial coordination there has been, how much the two stations will draw on each other.” Lynch, a Williams College professor and author of Voices of the New Arab Public, appeared on panels at the conference, after an “obligatory tour of Al Jazeera’s headquarters.” The panels were on neutral topics such as professional ethics, blogging, and journalism in the 21st century, but they were all moderated by someone with a vested interest in Al Jazeera’s image: either a network representative, news presenter or news manager, and Lynch was instructed on what to discuss. In his blog, Abu Aardvark, Lynch talks about directions he received before appearing on one panel. “My instructions were to talk about how AJI (Al Jazeera International) would be received in the American market,” Lynch said. “Basically, I said it would have the best shot of succeeding if it embraced its Al Jazeera identity rather than running away from it.” Julia Day of The Guardian covered a panel in the forum and produced an article entitled “US media at ‘all-time low’”. Panelists Amy Goodman, the executive producer and host of “Democracy Now!”, Christopher Dickey, Newsweek’s Paris bureau chief, and Faisal al-Kasim, host of Al Jazeera’s “The Opposite Direction,” blasted American media for its coverage on the war in Iraq. “Even Arabs who live in the West are giving up watching Western networks and tuning to Arabic networks instead,” al-Kasim said. Blogger Ethan Zuckerman, a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, and Lawrence Pintak, director of the Adham Center for Electronic Journalism and a former CBS correspondent, put the blame on both American and Arabic media. Pintak warned against glossing over problems in Arab media. “I am concerned that someone from the US or Europe who doesn't know the Arabic world will think that all is goodness and light when we know that is not the case,” said Pintak, whose new book is called Reflections in a Bloodshot Lens: America, Islam, and the War of Ideas. Ayman al-Zawahri’s video tape that debuted on Al Jazeera last month in response to the U.S. military’s attempt on his life in a bombing raid was never discussed on a forum panel. The tape was aired and distributed by the network in record time. Prior to this, a terrorism expert told ABC news correspondent Brian Ross that terrorist tapes from a remote hideaway location are usually “delivered by a courier network that can involve as many as 25 people and can take eight to twelve weeks to reach its destination”. Al Jazeera has refused to say how it acquired and broadcast the tape in just over one week. And then there is the professional quality of the tape itself. It appears to those familiar with television production techniques to have been taped with professional high-quality camera equipment in a studio setting, and not in a remote cave. There was a key light which lighting directors use to highlight the “form, dimension, and surface detail of subject matter,” that dramatically modeled shadows on al-Zawahri’s face, in close up against a black background, to heighten the impact of his remarks. This would have made an interesting panel discussion at the Doha conference, but it would not have advanced Al Jazeera’s PR agenda. 2006-02-09T01:12:56+00:00 #When:08:23:00Z This posting has been moved to the Public Diplomacy Blog. 2006-01-30T08:23:00+00:00 #When:00:03:37Z Worldcasting has obtained exclusive comparative independent television ratings that document a steady decline in Al Jazeera's popularity among viewers in Saudi Arabia over a one-year period. That country is the most important television market in the region; 70 percent of the region's television advertising is spent there. These consecutive 12-month ratings measure actual daily viewership of Middle East transnational television channels and not only bode ill for Al Jazeera's marquee Arabic channel; they also impact plans for Al Jazeera International, the network's new English-language service scheduled to debut in only two months. In what can be interpreted as a move to distance itself from the home-based channel, Al Jazeera International stresses that while the new English channel is the "sibling network to Al Jazeera Arabic…(it) is independent administratively, financially and editorially." In a monthly charting of audience ratings prepared exclusively for Worldcasting by the premier independent Middle East television survey organization IPSOS-STAT, the Saudi government-financed Al-Arabiya surpassed Al Jazeera in audience viewer rankings for the first time in the history of the two channels. IPSOS-STAT says that in 2003 and 2004 "the gap between the two stations was very big" in Saudi Arabia, with Al Jazeera holding a significant lead. IPSOS-STAT says that the weakening viewership of Al Jazeera is not confined to Saudi Arabia, which is inhabited by some 18 million persons, "most of whom are wealthy with high purchasing power." The trend shows a weakening of Al Jazeera's former lead throughout the region, with Al Arabiya getting stronger, although Al Jazeera is still leading in Kuwait, for example. Could it be that some Middle East viewers are tiring of Al Jazeera, which is often perceived as a more "radical and Islamic" network? This image of Al Jazeera as a conduit for terrorist videos is currently being reinforced with the video obtained from kidnappers showing Jill Carroll, the Christian Science Monitor reporter who is being held hostage, and the Osama bin Laden audio tape threatening another attack on the United States. Al Arabiya's content is seen by IPSOS-STAT as more moderate and seemingly more in tune with what viewers want to watch, and Al Arabiya's management is given credit for being "more enlightened and visionary." However, IPSOS-STAT's continuing monthly tracking surveys are at odds with the findings of a recent one-time Zogby International poll, which shows Al Jazeera still in the lead. Although the results of the Zogby poll have been widely reported, most informed observers believe they are deeply flawed, and that the poll's methodology is unfamiliar to reporters whose stories have not adddressed the nuances of audience polling. While IPSOS-STAT shows the actual viewing numbers that a channel receives, Zogby reports only audience preferences - what people say they prefer to watch, but in fact may not. Actual viewing numbers are what most advertising agencies and media use in their promotional planning. Zogby also limited its survey to satellite channels, leaving out terrestrial channels such as Al Arabiya, whose programs can be picked up with standard roof-top or television set-top antennas and reach large numbers of viewers with easy, free access. While leading Arab television channels discredited Zogby's findings, Al Jazeera promoted them with a special program featuring Karen Hughes, the U.S. government's ranking public diplomacy official. The apparent trend away from Al Jazeera comes at an especially inopportune moment for the Qatar-based all-news channel. Because Al Jazeera International is scheduled to officially launch its service to the United States and Australia in March, it is hurrying to persuade cable television systems to carry its program service and get commercial sponsors to pay the bills at a time when its parent channel is hawking a kidnapper video. The controversial cable channel reportedly is not succeeding in lining up cable channels or advertisers in the United States, the world's largest commercial market. All this is not lost on those who are putting together Al Jazeera's English channel. At its Washington, D.C., headquarters, where Worldcasting recently visited, executives are doing pre-emptive damage control by distancing themselves from the perceived news biases of the home office in the Middle East. They are emphasizing a new ethical code and independence from its Middle East parent in a region of the world where the novelty of Al Jazeera is rapidly wearing thin. 2006-01-20T00:03:37+00:00 #When:07:18:47Z Did the commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) really say those things about the media, and the war in Iraq? If so, why the big secret? The remarks attributed to General John Abizaid that mysteriously surfaced on the Internet and were sent anonymously to media outlets were said to have been from the General’s recent address at the Naval War College, date unknown. The speech was not (and is not) mentioned on the web sites of either CENTCOM or the Naval War College. It was one of the great mysteries of the holiday season in the blogosphere as to whether reports of the speech were bogus. http://www.karmalised.com/archives/001233.html In the purported speech, General Abizaid set forth clearly and succinctly how the U.S. military assesses the present situation in Iraq, and where things are headed. There are at least two major versions on the Internet of General Abizaid’s remarks, one from “a student at the Naval War College,” another from “CAPT Chuck Mull, USN (Ret.), USNA ’50, who was in attendance at the address.” They are word-for-word the same (“BS would not sell to this audience”). The version signed by the student, which pre-dated CAPT Mull’s, was posted on numerous blogs, including the West Point Old Grad Network. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1527192/posts Both the anonymous student and the CAPT Mull versions report that General Abizaid told the audience of “mid-grade/senior military officers” that he was “amazed as he goes around the country and testifies before the Congress how many of our countrymen do not know or understand what we are doing and how we are doing. There are very few members of Congress who have ever worn the uniform (or our armed forces). He said that the questions he gets from some in Congress convince him that they have the idea that we are about to be pushed out of Iraq…where the insurgency is in only 4 of 18 provinces.” General Abizaid reportedly stressed that “you will never see a headline in this country about a school opening or a power station being built and coming on line, or a community doing well…We are focused on the things that we (Americans) have done wrong, like Abu Ghraib, and not talking about this enemy. We need to talk about this enemy. “Since Desert Storm in 1991, US forces have not lost any combat engagement in the region at the platoon-level or above. Al Qaida has no belief that they can defeat us militarily. They see our center of gravity as being the will of the American people. That is influenced by the media and they are playing to that. They don’t need to win any battles. Their plan is to keep the casualties in front of the American people in the media for long enough that we will become convinced that we cannot win and leave the region. That would be tragic for our country.” On its web site, C-SPAN also carried the student’s summary, with a notation of support submitted by the Army Chief of Staff, General Peter Schoomaker, http://www.c-span.org/pdf/abizaid_comments120905_3.pdf. In addition, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal quoted General Abizaid and carried comments by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from a Public TV interview, where Mr. Rumsfeld was critical of the media’s reportage on Iraq. General Abizaid’s remarks also became fodder on radio talk shows. But did General Abizaid really utter those words at the Naval War College? Or was it someone trying to fool us, like the anonymous sender of bogus documents faxed to CBS’s 60 Minutes from Kinko’s in Abilene Texas, which disparaged President Bush’s National Guard Service? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathergate In the holiday crease between Christmas/Chanukah and January 1, when knowledgeable public affairs aides became available, Worldcasting confirmed with both U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the Naval War College that General Abizaid did indeed speak at the College on November 10. He spoke from notes, the speech was not recorded, and there is no official transcript of it. LT. Tawney Dotson at CENTCOM public affairs says reports on the Internet “accurately reflect the spirit” of General Abizaid’s remarks. It remains unclear why the definitive report on General Abizaid’s remarks had to come from an anonymous student, or whoever it really was, with the inevitable questions raised of its authenticity, which surely diminished its impact. An official transcript of General Abizaid’s off-the-cuff remarks could have easily been supplied to the press to avoid the confusion, and to promote a fuller understanding of U.S. military operations in Iraq. 2005-12-29T07:18:47+00:00 #When:01:52:47Z The latest international television satellite channel, Russia Today, debuted this week, after securing a bank loan of $30 million to cover start up costs. It will broadcast in English, as do satellite networks from the BBC, the Chinese government, and the proposed Al Jazeera channel. The satellite news bandwagon is getting more crowded all the time and English will be the language of choice as new channels develop. Russia Today is a 24/7 all-news channel, with a staff of more than 300. It began beaming English-language programs to the United States, Europe and Asia to provide a modern-day image of President Vladimir Putin's Russian Bear. The language is not the only import at Russia Today - the network is also built on the BBC and U.S. government broadcast models. An independent Board of Governors oversees the broadcast services and provides a firewall to keep the government from influencing news content and ensure objectivity. Seventy-two non-Russian journalists, including many Americans and Britons, are on the news staff to give the network a coveted international flair. Russian news is simply the latest example of English rapidly becoming the "in" language in international satellite television. Other languages - Russian, Chinese, even French - are passé in this medium, and Arabic is only now beginning to gain steam. Content and presentation of the English-language channels are usually developed by American and British mercenaries, who are making a cottage industry of getting the networks off the ground and on the air. CNN International has long been on the air around the world, but it targets the most "influential" 10 percent of the world's population who speak English and are often traveling and watch in hotel rooms and airports. The newcomers to the English-language satellite business want to reach a mass audience in the United States and around the world - a lofty goal in a risky and competitive market filled with long-established channels. Al Jazeera's English-language channel will be beamed to the United States and Australia and is planning to broadcast in 2006. That service is also top heavy with British and American news teams, including professionals with impressive news credentials, such as Editor Kieren Baker, formerly of CNN, and Managing Director Nigel Parsons, formerly of the BBC and Associated Press Television News. British talk show icon Sir David Frost will be Al Jazeera International's top news interview personality and Josh Rushing, a former U.S. Marine public affairs officer in Iraq, will report from Al Jazeera's Washington, D.C., bureau. Two of the four primary news bureaus will be located in Washington and London. As predicted, because Al Jazeera's Arabic channel rose to world prominence with the help of its Bin Laden and kidnapper videos, cable systems in America have been loath to sign agreements with the controversial channel. If the network does not have access to large audiences in the most influential country and richest commercial market in the world, they will be crippled from the outset. They have failed to make any deals with American carriers as of yet, but Al Jazeera's desire to be a major player in the West in general, and Washington, D.C., in particular, seems to outweigh the risks in their minds. They are refusing to be left behind in the English-language craze and are slated to launch in the spring. China's new English-language television news channel is all the rage in South Africa, reported Adam Powell, a senior fellow at the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy. Powell, who recently attended an international broadcast conference in Nairobi, Kenya, said, "China is making its move on TV. As with CNN and the BBC, CCTV9 - the English-language news channel - is on in hotels in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Nairobi. And now, as with CNN and the BBC, African 'terrestrial' broadcasters are carrying CCTV9. It's on right now on KBC - Kenya's government-owned BBC look-alike. The global broadcasters here are buzzing about it. They say it has caught the U.S. unawares, burying [Voice of America] TV - and bumping it from multi-channel platforms and hotel rooms." More efforts to reach into Africa via television could be in the works soon. A report by an independent task force sponsored by America's Council on Foreign Relations notes that "Africa is of growing international importance, playing an increasingly significant role in supplying energy, preventing the spread of terrorism, and halting the devastation of HIV/AIDS," and that "40% of African states are now electoral democracies." Can additional English language channels be far behind? The French, however, have ignored the trend. The government's plan for an international channel is modeled after CNN International's quest for elite audiences, but will be for French-speaking travelers. They will be able to view programs expressing "French values and vision to the world," said President Jacques Chirac. Additionally, the BBC, which has had its own international World Service television channel in English for some time, will debut its new Arabic television service in the year 2007. But despite these few anomalies, global news of the future will largely be reported in English and conceived by Americans and the British. English-language programming will come out of Beijing, Moscow, Atlanta, Cape Town, Qatar, Washington, Kuala Lumpur, London and elsewhere, and be transported to tiny villages, plush hotel rooms, government offices, airports, cafes, teeming marketplaces, and I-Pods everywhere. What Voltaire said in 1761 stands the test of time in today's instant communication age: "The first among languages is that which possesses the largest number of excellent works." 2005-12-16T01:52:47+00:00 #When:06:43:45Z The Senate Foreign Relations Committee conceded that its recent call for a debate on Alhurra's effectiveness should have happened before America’s Arabic television channel went on the air. But the oversight committee is too late. The dispute rages daily in Washington and the Middle East, and battle lines have been drawn on two major issues. One is who is watching Alhurra, and the other is what they see there. Audience ratings are important because the message means nothing if no one is there to receive it, as noted by Norman Pattiz, who founded Alhurra and Radio Sawa, the United States government-owned Arabic radio station. How many people are watching the channel might seem like a point everyone could agree on, but there are no neutral zones in the great Alhurra debate. The numbers released by the station paint a much more optimistic picture of its viewership than do those calculated by outside sources. Recently, Worldcasting cited that Alhurra had a 14 percent viewership in Iraq, according to one independent survey. However, a survey released by the network showed 44 percent viewership in the country. Both surveys had about the same number of respondents in their samples for national representation of actual viewing, both did face-to-face interviews throughout Iraq, which is considered more reliable than telephone polling. Each defended to Worldcasting its sample model - the locations of respondents within Iraq - as the most representative of the entire country. Why the differing results? The survey showing 44 percent recorded the percentage of the adult population in the Iraq sample that said they viewed Alhurra in the past week, while the lower figure, 14 percent, represented viewers who watched the channel the day before. Previous day numbers are "the currency of the market, most of the agencies, media and advertisers are relying on such data," according to a spokesperson for IPSOS-STAT, a leading independent marketing company in the Middle East. I also know from my personal experience at CBS in New York, that the overnight ratings delivered to my desk first thing each morning were grabbed before coffee. A representative from the U.S. government’s International Broadcasting Bureau spoke to Worldcasting and granted that “weekly audiences are normally greater than daily audiences for all channels, since more people watch any given channel at least once over the course of a week than watch on any given day." The spokesperson defended the network's research by saying that "Weekly viewing and/or listening is the standard audience measure used for all" - the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and others - and that it is also the standard measure by other international broadcasters including “the BBC, Radio France International, Deutsche Welle, Radio Canada...We use the weekly measure to maintain consistency…” And this has yet to get to the heart of the controversy. According to one critic, Alhurra is known as “Al Jazeera lite in the Middle East." Salameh Nematt, Washington Bureau Chief of the international Arab daily Al-Hayat and the Lebanon-based Arab satellite television channel LBC claimed that Arab audiences are disappointed that Alhurra does not have a harder edge in its reporting, “to expose torture and massacres" that are taking place in repressive Arab countries, and “rulers in the Gulf who pocket one-third of the country’s income.” Nematt said that “Middle East viewers were hoping that Alhurra would do the kind of reporting about repressive governments as the U.S. had done with Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America Arabic service,” the latter of which was replaced by the music and news channel, Radio Sawa. Deirdre Kline, communications director of the U.S. government’s Middle East Broadcasting Networks, countered by citing a list of 17 reports on issues carried regularly on Alhurra’s news broadcasts. Those include several stories from Saudi Arabia on such topics as human rights violations and the problem of domestic violence, plus the Kifaya movement’s demonstrations in Cairo before the general elections, and anti-war demonstrations in Washington, DC, and London. Alhurra gets its lightweight reputation in part because it “outsources” Middle East coverage, said Nematt, who was fired as an Alhurra talk show participant after he criticized the station’s management. He said it uses reporters from its mammoth contractor, Associated Press Television News (ATPN), instead of having its own full-time, staffed news bureaus in the region, as Al Jazeera does. APTN touts on its website that “We are now the primary source of foreign news and technical support for the growing number of satellite stations in the Middle East as well as Alhurra…” Farmed out reporting might work for now, but the new BBC Arabic channel launches in 2007; the British broadcaster said it "will draw upon the BBC's un-matched newsgathering resources," which have the potential to dwarf Alhurra's efforts to compete. This sentiment was echoed at a November congressional hearing of a subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee. Chairman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) criticized Alhurra for not having bureaus in locations such as Jordan, where network reporters arrived late to cover the hotel bombing in Amman. The congressman nevertheless gave "high marks" to station representatives for their forthcoming testimony. Nematt leveled more serious charges when he questioned the ethics of Alhurra's relationships with Middle Eastern countries that permit Radio Sawa to transmit programs from their territories on their radio frequencies. “Radio Sawa had to be on good terms with those countries, especially the security sections, to get the deals, and now Alhurra must try to please those countries as well, not to take the hard line and upset Radio Sawa’s transmitter agreements,” said Nematt. Radio Sawa lists 24 FM and AM radio stations that carry the channel throughout the Middle East. Deirdre Kline retorted, “The allegation that Alhurra shows favoritism to any country is unequivocally false. Alhurra’s mission, by law, is to broadcast accurate and objective news and information without bias or favoritism. Alhurra frequently broadcasts news reports, talk shows, magazine programs and town hall meetings on issues such as human rights, the rights of women, freedom and democracy.” A debate on Alhurra and Radio Sawa might happen on the Hill some day, but the shouting match has already begun. 2005-12-08T06:43:45+00:00 #When:06:33:42Z Karen Hughes is America's Top Gun communicator. But how will her job performance be rated 25 or even 50 years from now by her team in the State Department, elsewhere around the world and in the many politico-history books that will be written about her? Of course it's too early to tell, as she is just finding her way as the new undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. But does she have the qualities that helped raise some former directors of the defunct U.S. Information Agency to legendary status? There were more than a dozen USIA directors during the agency's almost half-century existence before it disbanded in 1999. Worldcasting asked professionals who served under some of them who was their favorite and why. This is not a run at nostalgia, but rather an attempt to focus on the very real problem of communicating America's story abroad and to examine what type of person it will take to fix the problems. More than six years have passed since the effort has had a powerful figure that was not only himself great, but also inspired others to greatness. The common thread among employees' memories of their directors is that the most revered leaders had an uncanny ability to make young and low-ranking USIA officials feel like integral cogs in the public diplomacy mission. Ambassador Jock Shirley, a veteran counselor to USIA directors, told Worldcasting the director he knew best was Jim Keogh, who is "no longer a young man now, but as spry as ever." Director Keogh had previously been the chief White House speechwriter for President Nixon and the executive editor of Time magazine. Jock Shirley, a USIA icon himself, believes "Jim Keogh's successes lay in his clear understanding of [three things]: USIA's role in the Cold War as it was being contested during his tenure, how best to use our skills in the struggle to contain and weaken the Soviet Union, and the strengths and weaknesses of the men and women of USIA and how to put those strengths to efficient use." Shirley continued, "Jim Keogh knew that a smoothly functioning Washington bureaucracy was the sine qua non for success in the field, but he knew also that it was the men and women scattered around the world on whom our usefulness ultimately depended. To them he devoted his greatest focus, traveling to every corner of the globe, visiting every major post in the world, and getting to know hundreds of our colleagues, from senior public affairs officers to junior trainees." Shirley observed after hundreds of hours with Keogh that the director's "insights into our operations were incisive, and his memory for people and judgment on where and how to assign them, phenomenal." But what Shirley remembers best was the warmth and affection Jim Keogh and his wife, Verna, showed to the USIA support staff. "Wherever they went morale soared. After long days of meetings, inspections, not-always-easy conversations with this or that ambassador or PAO [Public Affairs Officer], Jim and Verna Keogh loved nothing better than an evening of laughter and easy companionship surrounded by the men and women of the post." Others give former USIA director and ambassador Frank Shakespeare high marks. When Bob Wozniak was Public Affairs Officer in Cyprus in the early 1970s, Shakespeare planned a three-day trip there. "What does one do with the Agency director for so long a time on so small an island?" Wozniak asked himself. "More to the point, unlike what came to be practice with his successors traveling with support staff, area directors, security types...Frank came alone." Wozniak recalls that Shakespeare performed well in an hour-long interview on Cyprus state television, "an unprecedented opportunity for projecting the U.S. and its policies on neutral Cyprus' airwaves." But what most impressed Wozniak was the USIA director's graciousness to "an essential non-entity in the USIA hierarchy. My small staff and I were on razor's edge wondering if what we had arranged and were doing would meet expectations and requirements. Evidently they did." A promotion to Foreign Service Officer-3 came for Wozniak the following year. Public Affairs Officer Paul Blackburn also gave Shakespeare the highest marks, especially for his interest in getting the best from young people. "I had great respect for the leadership skills and personal sensitivity of Frank Shakespeare, a man whose political views were considerably to the right of my own," Blackburn told Worldcasting. "As Director during the traumatic Vietnam War years, Shakespeare gave unequalled attention to the morale of younger Foreign Service Officers [FSOs] and Civil Service personnel throughout the Agency...On one memorable occasion he met with us shortly after the U.S. 'incursion' into Cambodia...During that session he candidly shared our collective deep pain over both that legally and morally dubious action and also its effect on USIA's efforts to sustain America's standing in the world. Later Shakespeare paid this 34-year-old [Foreign Service Information Officer] the extraordinary compliment by taking a direct interest in my 1972 assignment" as Director of the Tokyo American Center. Professor Nancy Snow at California State University, Fullerton ranks Joseph Duffey, who presided over the demise of the USIA in the Clinton administration, at the head of the class. "Duffey was tasked with a no-winner," said Snow. A Cultural Affairs and Academic Exchange Specialist in the "E" Bureau, Snow said that while it was "clear to me that although [Duffey] had a strong commitment to cultural diplomacy and international exchange, the writing was on the wall that the USIA was going to lose its independent status. I appreciated the personal affability that Duffey displayed to his staff, including this lowly Presidential Management Fellow." It would be a pity if Karen Hughes is summoned back to the White House, where it is suspected she may wind up, to help calm the communication waters over there. She is desperately needed where she is - at the center of a broken U.S. public diplomacy effort - so she can jump start future generations of public diplomacy officers who need someone to admire. 2005-11-30T06:33:42+00:00 #When:03:24:40Z Alhurra needs a facelift. The ratings of America’s Arabic TV channel are flat among Iraqi audiences, the Bush administration is turning elsewhere to reach Arab and Muslim publics abroad and Congress is poised to debate Alhurra’s future. As a result, Alhurra appears to be seeking a harder edge to its programs in an effort to attract viewers and to make the channel a more popular platform for the discussion of U.S. foreign policies. A recent public opinion poll confirmed that such changes must be made if Alhurra hopes to survive in such a competitive market. IPSOS-STAT, an independent Middle East market research company, shows that Alhurra is making a lackluster showing in head-to-head popularity competition of channels available in Iraq. The most popular TV channel in Iraq remains Al-Iraqiya, with 46 percent of respondents calling it their prime source of news. Al-Iraqiya is the former state-run network that is now funded by the Pentagon and has been managed with the help of U.S. consultants. The channel, which has held the top ratings position for the past two years, has the advantage of being available in Iraq through a regular, old-style TV rooftop antenna without the need for a satellite dish. In second place at 41 percent is Al-Arabiya. Bankrolled by the Saudi government, it is by far the strongest pan-Arab satellite news channel in Iraq, followed by the local, privately funded Al-Sharkiya with 39 percent. That channel features such popular programs as home rebuilding (which the station helps to fund), and an Iraqi-centric, Saturday Night Live-esque satire show. The next most popular news channel in Iraq is Al-Jazeera at 23 percent, whose relatively poor showing is because there is an "official government ban" on the channel and "many Iraqis dislike Al-Jazeera because they don’t like its coverage or resent its allegedly pro-Saddam coverage (before and after) the war," according to Marc Lynch in his Abu Aardvark blog. Next are the two Middle East Broadcasting Corporation’s news, information and entertainment channels, at 20 percent and 19 percent. Eventually, you will find Alhurra in eleventh place with 14 percent popularity. The U.S. government-funded effort has both a pan-Arab satellite channel and a channel specifically targeted for Iraq. The facts about this struggling network are not lost on the Bush administration. Marc Lynch said he recently saw "a 2005-11-23T03:24:40+00:00 #When:18:38:13Z The Bush administration is beginning to provide specifics on how it plans to shape up U.S. public diplomacy and effectively introduce American ideas to the Arab and Muslim world. Karen Hughes, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs and a confidant of President Bush, testified before the House International Relations Committee last week in “An Around-the-World Review of Public Diplomacy.” In her revealing statements, Hughes disclosed details of recent meetings with State Department officials abroad who will soon take on new public diplomacy responsibilities, and discussed her closed-door meetings with officials who oversee U.S. government international broadcasting services. Secretary Hughes told the Congressional oversight committee that there will be more regional media activity by American diplomats in the Middle East, especially by U.S. ambassadors and American public affairs officers there, and more frequent appearances by U.S. spokespersons on the high-profile Arabic satellite news channel, al-Jazeera. Her goals are reminiscent of the former U.S. Information Agency before it was disbanded in the 1990s, where emphasis was placed on interaction between highly skilled USIA public diplomacy officers abroad and local media. As in the days of the USIA, Washington will help shape the officers’ messages and the job performance of U.S. diplomats in the field will be evaluated partly on their public diplomacy abilities. Secretary Hughes told the House International Relations Committee some of what she learned on her recent “listening” trip to the Middle East, for which she was largely reviled by local media and reporters who traveled with her. “I’ve met with ambassador after ambassador,” she said, “and I’ll say ‘What are you doing about public diplomacy in your country?’ and they say ‘We talk to this newspaper and that newspaper,’ and I’ll say ‘Do people in your country get most of their news from newspapers?’ and they say ‘No, they get it from al-Jazeera.’ And I’ll say ‘What are you doing about al-Jazeera?’ And that’s why I’m looking at a regional platform to put regional Arabic speakers on al-Jazeera.” Hughes said that American spokespersons will also be available for the U.S. Arabic channel, Alhurra. Hughes said she is aware that there has been a debate about whether it’s wise to place administration spokespersons on al-Jazeera because much of its reporting has been “inflammatory and frequently wrong, and based on rumor and innuendo.” But she argued that al-Jazeera “reaches a wide audience and I feel that if we’re not appearing on that station, we’re missing an opportunity to communicate with a whole lot of people.” She added that the U.S. will continue to complain to al-Jazeera when it looks as if the channel has distorted the facts or been guilty of misinformation. Hughes also talked to the committee about what has been going on in meetings of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a federally funded agency that acts as a so-called “firewall” to protect the U.S. government’s non-military broadcast services–such as the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Alhurra–from outside political influence. Secretary Hughes sits on the BBG and told Congress that while she is mindful of the need to keep the administration’s agenda at a safe distance from broadcasts to the Arab-Muslim world, she still takes the State Department’s “strategic priorities” into consideration in her work on the Board. “Despite the firewall, there are opportunities of some synergy,” she emphasized. Hughes mentioned that in one of the early BBG meetings she informed the group that the Department of State “brings student clerics from the Middle East to the U.S. so they will have an opportunity to see what our country is really like,” including visits to mosques and synagogues. Hughes suggested such visits should not be off limits to news cameras. “Wouldn’t it make sense for our Arabic-language station, Alhurra, to do a documentary about that exchange program and share it with a much wider audience? I think we can do things like that and not breach the firewall, and make our broadcasts and public diplomacy more effective.” More openness by U.S. diplomats and U.S. officials in the Middle East, and the fact that the Bush administration understands that its best conduit to reach the Arab street is al-Jazeera, opens potentially rewarding new pathways for American public diplomacy abroad. Karen Hughes apparently knows that she can come close to the firewall, but can’t touch it, and her ideas for program content would seem to have some foreign policy heft that has previously been missing from U.S. public diplomacy efforts. 2005-11-15T18:38:13+00:00 #When:08:00:25Z The world is divided among three superpowers: the United States, the United Kingdom, and al-Jazeera. The world of Arabic satellite channels, that is. Each of the three has claimed its section of this world, defining it in a tidy little package called a business model. The models created by the U.K. and al-Jazeera have filled, or plan to fill, specific voids in the marketplace. The third superpower has its business model too, but the void it attempts to fill is more vague than the others, and thus its goals have been more difficult to attain. The British Broadcasting Corporation is the most recent entry into this exclusive power-player world with its newly announced Arabic TV channel. Its goal is to bring the news of the wider world, not just the Arab and Muslim world, to the Middle East. The BBC’s Arabic TV Service is expected to debut in 2007. It will offer “trusted and accurate news with an international agenda,” says the BBC’s World Service Director Nigel Chapman. “Our research suggests there is strong demand for an Arabic Television service from the BBC in the Middle East.” To help pay for its new enterprise, The BBC will close 10 radio language services, mainly in Europe, and receive total public funding from the British Parliament. Because the BBC’s service will be only 12 hours a day at first, it will not reach full strength for several more years, but its mission is clear from the outset. “Our service is not about reflecting the Arab world to itself, it’s about reflecting international news to the Arab world,” explains Chapman. “That’s one of the things that will make us distinctive in the market place because our competitors don’t have access to the BBC’s resources.” He is referring primarily to al-Jazeera, which is the satellite news channel of choice throughout most of the Arab Middle East. Al-Jazeera’s clear objective from the beginning was to be the regional television news provider; to beam its news channel from the Middle East to the Middle East. The channel, from the tiny Gulf state of Qatar, was out to show a thing or two to bigger neighbors like Saudi Arabia. It has more than achieved its marketing goals. Ever sharply focused, al-Jazeera now has a new carefully crafted mission to expand its brand to the United States. Although al-Jazeera’s new English-language channel is targeting America, the world’s richest commercial market, it also seeks a global English-speaking audience: “educated affluent viewers; including key decision makers who recognize the importance of an international news agenda.” Enter the United States, with its struggling government-funded Middle East broadcast network. Even though the BBC snubs Alhurra by not mentioning it among the BBC’s competition, I list the U.S. as a power player in Arabic TV because of Alhurra’s potential. The purpose of the U.S. network is “to promote and sustain freedom and democracy by broadcasting accurate and objective news and information about the United States and the world…the mission of all U.S. international broadcasting,” according to Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, who heads the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the group responsible for all U.S. non-military broadcasting. This has been the mission of U.S. international broadcasting for more than a half-century, since the U.S. Information Agency was formed after World War II. But today’s critics believe that this overarching idea needs another paragraph or two to specifically address how U.S. government television public diplomacy plans to fill the void in today’s ever-changing marketplace. Worldcasting has learned that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee believes it’s time for an oversight hearing on Alhurra and Radio Sawa, which they have not done for more than a year. It wants to have the “debate” over U.S. government’s Middle East broadcasting, one some of its members think should have happened before the broadcast stations were funded, and the committee was given a “hard sell.” This is no reflection upon the dedicated men and women who practice public diplomacy, as 2005-11-05T08:00:25+00:00 #When:21:50:39Z It is relatively clear to me where U.S. public diplomacy is headed in 2006. And so there’s really no reason to wait until late December, or New Year’s day, to make predictions about the coming new year. Therefore, I will submit my predictions now, and take my chances. One. Al-Jazeera, the renegade Arabic satellite channel, will continue to drive the agenda of U.S. public diplomacy. It plays the offense, the U.S. the defense. But the defense will begin to score some points after January 1. Both will be looking back over their shoulders as the BBC shapes up its Arabic language TV channel, scheduled for launch in 2007. Two: Al-Jazeera will, in fact, be in the White House's face more than ever next year. This prediction is a sure thing, because the channel is already in the face of the White House, literally. Its new English language service has moved into its Washington, DC, studios on 16th Street, just a few blocks from the White House. Employees of each will see one another at the same restaurants at lunch time, where al-Jazeera will no doubt be on TV monitors, with its English language reports from up the street and from other anchor locations in London, Doha, and Kuala Lumpur, starting this spring. The U.S. government’s channel, Alhurra, is not carried in English, only in Arabic, and is not available in the U.S. Go figure. Three: The Bush administration will scramble to find talking heads – the kind one sees on U.S. cable news channels and Sunday morning interview shows. That’s because the producers of al-Jazeera’s English language satellite channel will have lots of time to fill, 24/7, and will be looking for talking heads to fill that time, especially from Washington. The White House and the State Department’s public diplomacy chief, Karen Hughes, ought to start thinking about this soon, to provide ample time for media training of the most articulate and attractive spokespersons. Four: The U.S. will react to al-Jazeera’s new thrust into the U.S. - if it stays on schedule - by moving to repeal the Smith-Mundt Act. Since the end of World War II, Smith-Mundt has banned the domestic dissemination of U.S. government non-military international broadcasts. It was enacted when memories of Nazi propaganda foisted on the German people were still fresh. With al-Jazeera English seen in America, Congress will conclude that Smith-Mundt is out-of-date. Its repeal would free up Alhurra and other U.S. government programs to be seen in America. Five: America’s public diplomacy will become less of a mess - as some characterize it - if Karen Hughes stays put throughout 2006 as the State Department’s communications czarina. Although she is but one of nine members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors who oversee the American government’s international broadcast services, she will use her clout as confidant of President Bush to make public diplomacy more proactive. Her boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has said that more will be expected of the U.S. government’s international broadcasters. Karen Hughes can be expected to be the catalyst. Six: Non-government organizations (NGOs), will do more than just talk about what to do about U.S. public diplomacy. NGOs will start to do something themselves. The Foundation for International Understanding will forge its first TV co-production partnership between American and overseas counterparts to improve U.S. communications with Muslim societies. And this will be just for starters from the private sector. Seven: Public opinion polls will continue to be funded by Middle East TV channels themselves, confirming their own popularity. But totally independent TV audience surveys will be conducted as well in 2006. One such media poll, I predict, will be conducted in cafes and university lunch rooms throughout the Middle East, to determine which of the satellite news channels are getting the most “buzz.” Another will determine which of the news channels are the most reliable among ALL viewers, not only those who watch the channel funding the poll. Yet another survey will show audience SHARE (the percentage of viewers that each station receives in head-to-head competition) for Middle East satellite news channels. Eight: Suggestions will continue to be made that America’s Alhurra satellite channel ought to be turned into a C-SPAN for the Middle East, showcasing U.S. democracy at work in the congress and elsewhere, at the state and local levels. But again, al-Jazeera got there first. It recently started to broadcast a C-SPAN-type channel that carries Middle East parliaments in session wall-to-wall and Middle East town hall meetings. Nine: With all of its varied channels, al-Jazeera will be doing its share in 2006 to showcase democracy spreading across the Middle East. Its previous extensive coverage of the continuing Iraqi electoral process, and extraordinary in-depth treatment of the UN report on Syria’s complicity in the murder of the former prime minister of Lebanon, were landmark broadcasts for the Middle East. Look for more such coverage about the changing Middle East on al-Jazeera in 2006, particularly coverage that displays the democratic process. Ten: Al-Jazeera will go public. It continues to extend its brand beyond its Arab and English language news channels with its version of C-SPAN, and its sports and educational channels. With few sponsors to help pay the freight, even the Emir of Qatar, al-Jazeera’s founder and benefactor, can run out of gas. And he is positioning his brand for that eventuality. Yes, most predictions about U.S. public diplomacy involve al-Jazeera. But that’s because it will continue to drive the public diplomacy agenda in 2006, while the U.S.A. and others play catch-up. 2005-10-27T21:50:39+00:00 #When:19:16:56Z The Bush administration has a new public diplomacy game plan to promote democracy within Iran. The idea is to build public support for democratic reform there and to pressure Iran's new hard line leadership into becoming more enlightened, especially where their nuclear aspirations are concerned. The State Department's plan includes a Farsi-language television service beamed to Iran. But there are at least two problems with that public information concept. Problem number one is that the Voice of America already has a Farsi-language TV service to Iran. It has, in fact, been operational for 9 years. Former VOA deputy director Alan Heil advises that the Farsi-language TV service is now on the air 10 ½ hours weekly, with a presence of 7 days per week. The second problem is the false notion that an all-news satellite TV channel will attract a substantial number of viewers and be influential in promoting American values and U.S. foreign policy objectives. This is wishful thinking, given today's cluttered and highly competitive international satellite channel marketplace. Of course, a good case can be made for the VOA's entry as a satellite program provider to Iran. It and other U.S. government broadcasters succeeded in breaching the Iron Curtain with news and information, and are battle hardened, albeit from another era. At the dawn of international broadcasting, when scientists discovered in 1924 that radio signals could be reflected for great distances by bouncing them up and down between Earth's surface and its upper layer of atmosphere in giant steps thousands of miles long, governments began their missionary work. The Netherlands was the first European country to use short-wave radio to maintain contact with its Dutch colonies abroad. Britain, France, Portugal, and Belgium followed soon after: they also wanted to strengthen ties with their overseas possessions. State-of-the-art technology back then consisted of powerful short wave transmitters costing tens of millions of dollars each and weighing hundreds of tons, arrayed side-by-side on acres of land, transmitting radio signals that would be received as scratchy, fading signals. Today's TV satellites in stationary positions above Earth can be accessed quickly and efficiently by those who wish to reach home satellite dishes practically anywhere on the planet with pristine quality video signals. The process may soon be as easy as making a cell phone call. British Broadcasting Corporation journalists are in fact experimenting with a hybrid cell phone that can reach a TV satellite with video, which can then be transmitted to targeted areas globally. With such easy access, almost daily there is word of yet another government TV satellite news channel preparing to enter the fray. Here are but a few of the most recent hopefuls. The government of France is preparing to launch a 24-hour news channel in French, English and Arabic. A new government channel from Moscow called "Russia Today," is scheduled to air by the first of the year to the United States, Europe, and Asia. The Arabic channel al-Jazeera is readying its English language service to the United States that will feature a breakfast program with British talk show star Sir David Frost. And the BBC wants to launch an Arabic news channel to challenge the controversial al-Jazeera. Even the tiny Islamic sultanate of Brunei plans to extend its satellite programs worldwide. Of course, the plug can be pulled on those who break the rules of acceptable conduct. An example of this is Al-Manar, the Lebanese Hezbollah satellite channel, whose stories have gone way over the top. One of its videos encourages children to blow themselves up as martyrs, while another claims that Jews slaughter Christian children to drink their blood at Passover. As a result, the French and British government satellite authority Eutelsat has banned Al-Manar from being carried to European countries for violating the laws of racial hatred, and the U.S., on grounds that Al-Manar incites terrorist activity, has banned its programs from being carried on Intelsat, which beams programs to North America. However, Arabsat continues to transmit Al-Manar’s programs to the Middle East. What about the rest, who enjoy easy access to communication satellites? The new satellite channel most likely to succeed is the entry from the Seoul, Korea Broadcasting Service that will be available on DirectTV in the U.S. It will carry drama, sports, news, and comedy programs, specifically tailored for Korean-American viewers. It has a clearly defined audience, and programs to satisfy viewer tastes and expectations. Least likely to succeed is Al-Jazeera America. The Arabic channel’s basic Middle East service has gained a following by pandering to its audience with fallacious news reports such as the fabrication that Israel was tipped off in advance of the London terrorist bombings. Al-Jazeera can be expected to lose its contentious, controversial edge in its new English language service to America, so as not to alienate the potential U.S. commercial sponsors that it seeks, and a mainstream American audience. And then there is the VOA’s Farsi TV service to Iran, which has been going about its business seriously but quietly for most of the past decade, acquiring new skills for its current communication mission. Provided with sufficient support, chances are that VOA professionals will find a way to win in Iran, as they did during the Cold War. 2005-10-14T19:16:56+00:00 #When:03:55:56Z While State Department official Karen Hughes was wrapping up her listening tour of the Middle East, an important session of United Nations representatives was taking place in Geneva. Ms. Hughes, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, was assessing how the United States government might better communicate with Arabs and Muslims abroad. The U.N. meeting was tackling the issue of how much authority the United States ought to have in overseeing world information that would help the United States do so. The large entourage of reporters who accompanied Secretary Hughes critiqued her every move in perfect harmony: one of many students she met with in Egypt lectured her on U.S. swagger and arrogance; a feminist in Turkey berated the United States for not understanding Middle East traditions; a woman in Saudi Arabia told Ms. Hughes it was unimportant that Saudi women were not permitted to drive because she has a driver. The image conveyed here was that Secretary Hughes, President Bush's long-time friend and confidant, was unprepared for what she encountered on her first trip to the Middle East, that she was rejected at every turn. According to John Brown, who monitors media for the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy, there were few "kind words" for Karen Hughes, "either from the left or right." But it remains to be seen what Karen Hughes will do with what she has learned, and that is probably quite a lot. There is precedent for someone close to a president to have a major impact on the way America communicates its policy objectives abroad. The last such person was Charles Z. Wick, a former director of the U.S. Information Agency and long-time friend of Ronald Reagan. As the director of the USIA's Television and Film Service for eight years, I accompanied director Wick on most of his overseas trips where international broadcasting was on the agenda. Communication opportunities observed abroad would be assessed upon return to Washington, and often implemented. The long lines we observed stretching for blocks into a video rental store in Amman, Jordan would lead to a worldwide video rental club at U.S. embassies; a remark by the mayor of West Berlin at lunch would lead to a new U.S.-West German TV station in the heart of communist East Germany; a secret meeting with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev's deputy during a summit session in Iceland would help to alleviate the Soviets' jamming of the Voice of America. So we really don't know what's in Karen Hughes' head, following her survey trip to the Middle East, and those who characterize her as a Texas bumpkin out of her league in Middle East foreign policy may well be proven wrong. And now for the United Nations meeting that was held in Geneva while Karen Hughes was holding hers in the Middle East. The Geneva session has a very real tie-in with Karen Hughes' agenda far away, in terms of improving U.S. communications in the Middle East. The central question at the Geneva session was: who owns the Internet, without question one of the world's great communication tools. Some may not realize it, but there is a current owner of the Internet, and it is the United States of America. But others, including the United Nations, want to take it over. The European Union, which participated in the Geneva session with the United States and the United Nations, insists that the private sector should be involved as an owner of the Internet, on grounds that, reports Associated Press Business Writer Aoife White, "the Internet is a global resource. The EU...is very firm on this position." He continues, "At issue is who would have ultimate authority over the Internet's master directories, which tell Web browsers and e-mail programs how to direct traffic.... That role has historically gone to the United States, which created the Internet as a Pentagon project and funded much of its early development." And guess what? The U.S. government has some of the most popular sites on the Internet. Overall, U.S. government sites are No. 6 in popularity in the world! According to Nielsen Net Ratings, the most popular federal site is the U.S. Department of Commerce, which, by the way, oversees the Internet for the U.S. government. The most popular site within the Commerce Department is the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a valuable resource for hurricane information, and the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology where you can set the right time, to the fraction of a second, on your desktop or notebook. The second most popular U.S. federal site is Health and Human Services, including the National Library of Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Federal Drug Administration, and Medicare & Medicaid. In third place is the U.S. Treasury, primarily the Internal Revenue Service (no surprise there). The fourth most popular federal site is the Interior Department (Parks and Geological Survey), and in fifth place, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Nielsen Net Ratings tells Worldcasting that the U.S. government federal broadcasting services, including the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Alhurra TV, and the others, are not rated by Nielsen because they "fall below the reporting cutoff," meaning their Internet ratings are too low for inclusion. Now, one can assume that Karen Hughes, ripped on her trip to the Middle East by writers from the left and the right, is looking beyond this to next month's World Summit on the Information Society to be held in Tunisia, where America's ownership of the Internet will be argued. Instead of reading her press clips, the secretary may be looking instead into the feasibility of presenting the most popular Internet sites in the world in Arabic, on the American-owned and operated Internet. 2005-10-03T03:55:56+00:00 #When:18:37:35Z As the prison road boss remarked to the Paul Newman character in the classic 1967 movie "Cool Hand Luke," "What we got here is…failure to communicate." There were many examples of this failure to communicate during hurricane Katrina as it swept through the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, but one comes indelibly to mind: a TV news interview with a rescue worker standing chest-deep in water near New Orleans. The rescuer said a helicopter overhead could not communicate with him by radio, and so the helicopter pilot put his message in a bottle and lowered it by rope to the waterline below. One reason for this primitive step, as later revealed, is that there is a lack of radio frequencies for emergency communications. The government gave away much of that broadcast spectrum to TV stations (which ironically love to program fictional "survivor" shows) so they could use the extra bandwidth for high definition TV channels, something few of them have done. The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the broadcast spectrum, says it is looking into this inaction, and so too will Congress, which oversees the FCC and knew about the problem years ago. And so because human rescue attempts had to be conducted with the use of messages stuffed in bottles -- only half a step up from tin cans and strings -- more people probably died. While the FCC began to review its broadcast spectrum policies, an entire busload of 24 nursing home residents fleeing hurricane Rita were incinerated in the fire that consumed their vehicle as it was stuck in highway traffic near Dallas. Rescue workers could not reach them in time. Contributing to the nightmarish traffic jam throughout eastern Texas was perhaps another failure to communicate: Motorists should have been reminded in advance to gas up their cars, which many failed to do. Cars ran dry, and so did gas station pumps, along escape routes. But as the news media begin to pile on federal, state, and local authorities for their failures to communicate, the media are confronted face-to-face with their own failures to communicate, as evidenced by declining readership of newspapers and news magazines. Between landfalls of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the New York Times announced a staggering number of 500 job reductions in its company properties, including those in New York and the Boston Globe. The Times Company had already reduced its work force by 200 earlier this year. And last week the Philadelphia Daily News and Inquirer announced 100 job reductions. The print media believe they can do a better job communicating with younger persons, who are defecting from ink-on-paper, by turning to the Internet. The Associated Press on Sept.19 launched a news service for 20 and 30 somethings, called asap, pronounced "a-s-a-p," says its press release. The Miami Herald has been totally reformatted to make it more appealing to busy readers who are used to browsing web sites. The Washington Post recently launched a blog on the opinion pages of its website. Nudging new business models is the increasingly violent nature of the world in which we live, and the penchant, the urge, among the curious to become informed quickly and intimately. Since the runup to the Iraq war, newspaper and news magazines have failed to communicate to many. Readership has remained essentially flat on Iraq and other major stories, including the tsunami in Thailand and the Indian Ocean, and the terrorist bombings in London. Meanwhile, Internet news portals, including those abroad, have become more popular. An interesting phenomenon occurred with the onset of the Iraq war, when more Americans began to seek information from media abroad. According to Nielsen/Net Ratings, at the onset of the Iraq war, half of the visitors to Britain's Guardian Unlimited news site were from Americans. The Guardian's web site had a 10 percent increase in visitors. The number of visitors to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.'s website increased, while the number of visitors to CNN's website declined, according to Wired News. Conversely, news portals abroad, like al-Jazeera, crib much of their content from portals in the U.S. and elsewhere that reflect the views of their readers and viewers, with whom they effectively communicate. It saves money by using the work of others, and sites derive energy from those sources, without expending any themselves. Objectivity is of no matter. On the fourth anniversary of 9/11, al-Jazeera featured a story on its web site's home page that included an image of the World Trade tower crumbling to earth, with text stating, "As Hitler was rising to power in the 1930s, someone did him the favor of burning the Reichstag, the German Parliament. A lot of analysts said that the Nazis burnt it down themselves. Actually, a lot of Americans support the theory that Bush's admin (istration) brought down the World Center itself." (The story was, in fact, an article taken from the American website Common Dreams, which boasts itself as a "must read" for talk show host Don Imus and PBS's Bill Moyers. But the Al-Jazeera reprint was a distortion of the original article by Harvey Wasserman which said: "Few Americans believe the Bush Administration itself brought down the World Trade Center last year. But the conviction is widespread throughout Europe and the Muslim world, and for good reason.") Another story from the UK's Independent and Common Dreams, comparing Iraq to Vietnam, was featured as the lead item on al-Jazeera's home page Sept. 22. While print media in the U.S. ponder how to communicate better to regain readership, and the FCC decides how much of the broadcast spectrum should be re-assigned to real survivor communications, and not those depicting by shapely young actors on TV survival shows, U.S. State Department officials are traveling abroad so they can listen to what people there have to say, so the United States can learn how to communicate more effectively with them. When Karen Hughes, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, and her assistant secretary, Dina Powell, who succeeded others who have failed to communicate, return from their listening trip to the Middle East, they should take a look at Nielsen's Internet ratings which show that the U.S. government is in the top ten of the most popular websites - No. 6 in world popularity to be precise - immediately behind such giants as Yahoo, Google, and eBay, but ahead of Amazon, Real!Networks and Viacom International. I'm not talking about branding America or political hype on U.S. government web sites, but rather harnessing the energy of the greatest country on earth into the greatest Internet search engine in the world for learning, to better communicate with the world. You don't need to hop a plane anymore to listen, you can listen and work the crowd from your desktop -- a lot more effectively than Cool Hand Luke and his guard overseer were able to communicate in 1967. 2005-09-26T18:37:35+00:00 #When:03:40:43Z There are at least two versions of what happened when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and other Gulf cities -- of the flooding, the death and breathtaking destruction, and of the governmental response. Sharply different stories are being told, one by domestic broadcasters, the view from their bubble; the other by foreign broadcasters, as seen from their bubble. The best way to look inside the American bubble is to watch a video called “Reporters Gone Wild,” on Salon.com, which delivers what the title advertises. Displayed in the raw are U.S. broadcast news reporters emerging from their traditional role as observers to become emotionally involved, to become hyper-advocates, to become themselves part of the story about Katrina, together with its victims. One reporter gone wild was CNN’s Anderson Cooper, seen interrupting Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat, who was thanking federal officials for their help. “Excuse me, senator,” interjected Cooper, “I’m sorry for interrupting. I haven’t heard that, because, for the last four days, I’ve been seeing dead bodies in the streets here in Mississippi. And to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other, you know, I’ve got to tell you, there are a lot of people who are very upset, and very angry, and very frustrated. …There was a body on the street in this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman had been lying in the street for 48 hours.” We monitored other CNN reports, one of which noted that “corpses in New Orleans are disintegrating, threatening disease. Economic losses may be much greater than officially announced.” In the New Orleans Superdome and the Convention Center, where tens of thousands fled for safety and found themselves unsafe and locked in, Fox reporter Geraldo Rivera held up a black baby in his arms and tearfully exclaimed on camera, “Let them go, let them out of here.” Fox anchor Shepard Smith reported, “Things are not equal in this city. The government locked them in here. Let them out,” he exclaimed. “When is help coming for these people? Is there going to be help? …Officer?” A Bubble Away But far away, outside the American bubble but in another one, things were calm and business-like. The story played quite differently on TV and radio in Europe and the Middle East. Worldcasting determined this by looking through hundreds of broadcast summaries from those parts of the world. In an admittedly unscientific survey, we read broadcast texts from TV and radio newscasts of many countries, using the subscription BBC Monitoring Service database. We examined the period from Aug. 29, when Katrina came ashore on the Louisiana Gulf Coast, through Sept. 15, an 18-day period. Of course this was not an all-inclusive survey, but we did review enough broadcasts from abroad over this two-and-a-half week period to come away with a pretty good idea of how Katrina was reported to TV viewers and the radio audience there, as compared to the way the story was being told at home in the United States. It should be noted that the BBC Monitoring Service does not monitor United Kingdom press. We found that the hurricane was handled in what might be called a routine manner abroad. It was another story competing for airspace with several stories which often took precedence over Katrina. The hurricane was often not the lead story, but instead placed well down in the body of a news broadcast, akin to the second section of a newspaper. A regional or local tie-in was most often the news peg. Humanitarian aid seemed to be the strongest bond, reflecting the specific assistance conveyed to the United States from that nation. On Belgian radio, Defense Minister Andre Flahaut was interviewed on the tarmac near a plane containing aid workers that would soon take off for New Orleans. “It’s just like when the tsunami appeal was made,” said Flahaut. “Within a few hours we had 250 volunteers, on Friday afternoon. The first 10, men and women, are leaving from here and a reserve is still available, but this will depend on the requests made or the needs observed on the ground.” A Belgian soldier nearby added, “First, faced with a disaster such as we have seen in the United States, I am proud to represent Belgium. And then, I like to work to help people.” This humanitarian-help theme was echoed in countless other broadcast reports from Europe and the Middle East. Next in prominence, Katrina was reported as a business or economic story, because of its broad impact on oil and gasoline prices. Bosnian IRIB Radio reported that the “price of crude oil exceeds record $70 per barrel due to possible consequences of Katrina.” Danish Radio said the country was providing oil to the market from reserves “to alleviate the shortage of oil caused by the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina….” RTP International TV of Lisbon reported, “Alongside countries such as France, Spain, Germany and Italy, Lisbon has offered to send barrels of crude oil and gasoline from its emergency stockpiles in an effort to alleviate a gasoline supply crunch in the USA in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.” Montenegrin TV News reported on the day the hurricane hit New Orleans, over video of the devastation, that oil prices would be going up. Victims in New Orleans were not depicted as being black or white, rich or poor, young or old, as they were in U.S. media reports. They were local nationals from Croatia or Denmark or Saudi Arabia who were in harm’s way in New Orleans, and the audience learned who they were and how they were faring. “No Danes are missing in the USA after the hurricanes,” reported Danish Radio on its web site Sept. 7. “The last Dane who was missing … has now been found.” And Slovak Radio reported well down into a newscast, “The Foreign Ministry has no information about any Slovak nationals being victims of Hurricane Katrina. In cooperation with the Slovene embassy in Washington, a Slovene woman was helped with returning home and they are organizing the return of a Slovene student who is currently with a group of students in the Louisiana State University facilities.” Spanish Radio said a rescue mission was headed to New Orleans to help Spaniards affected by Katrina. There were international stories that took precedence during this period over Hurricane Katrina, such as the many hundreds of pilgrims killed in the Baghdad bridge stampede, the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the first democratic elections in Egypt, and the fourth anniversary of 9/11, each of which at one time or another took precedence over Katrina in news broadcasts abroad. In Syria, a local story about police academy graduates was the lead, while Katrina was relegated to the 17th spot in the news report. A reason for Katrina being played as business-as-usual was that few stations had reporters of their own in New Orleans. Croatian TV did have a journalist on the scene, and placed his stories higher up in the news broadcast than other stations that relied on coverage of Katrina from other sources. There was some reporting on the lack of preparedness by administration officials from Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency, but overall President Bush fared fairly well. Each of his three visits to New Orleans was duly noted, placing him at the scene of the disaster and thus portraying him as caring about it. His Saturday radio addresses were also reported. Washington politics and charges of racism connected with rescue operations did not surface to any great extent in our program review. Looting was reported, but moderately; blacks involved were generally depicted as lawbreakers, not victims. Slovene radio news reported that the “consequences of Karina Hurricane in the USA were catastrophic,” with criminal gangs taking over towns, no law enforcement, explosions, and more soldiers being sent to the affected areas. Croatian TV noted that “lawlessness grips New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.” But this aspect of the story, which became a focus of reporting on U.S. television and radio outlets, was limited in coverage abroad that we reviewed. Voice of America correspondents appeared on TV and radio news broadcasts in Europe and Middle East with factual reports from New Orleans. Reporting about Al Manar Lebanese Hezbollah TV, the BBC Monitoring Service noted that “… preachers this week gave special attention to Hurricane Katrina. …The preachers considered the hurricane a manifestation of the power of God, a lesson to people, and a warning to the arrogant on Earth.” But the infamous al-Jazeera Arabic channel displayed even-handed coverage of Katrina by noting that “President Bush pledges to investigate any negligence in rescue and relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.” And Syrian TV also noted that President Bush had pledged to investigate his administration’s handling of the Katrina disaster. Al-Jazeera noted that, “The popularity of Bush is dropping,” and that “many Americans are asking the administration to turn the funds it is spending in Iraq to the disaster-stricken area.” Iranian TV on the anniversary of Sept.11 had a long report which spoke of America’s “weakness in attending to the post-Katrina crisis.” And now we return to the U.S. bubble, where reports abound that Katrina and the slow response to its victims by government, will further tarnish America’s image abroad. The International Herald Tribune’s Roger Cohen writes from New York that, “All the ingredients were there in the days after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. … The rich, mainly white folks, high-tailing it out of town; the poor, overwhelmingly black, abandoned and marooned; the streets given over to armed vigilantes; the government unresponsive and society unglued … has … hurt the international image of President George W. Bush’s administration….” Worldcasting concludes that those abroad are more interested in themselves than in us. What may happen, as New Orleans rises from rubble to become a gleaming new city on the Gulf Coast, is that broadcast news stories abroad will likely dwell on the positive side of the city’s re-birth, and their own hand in it. 2005-09-19T03:40:43+00:00 #When:23:09:28Z TV viewers in Iraq want to laugh and be entertained. Unlike voyeuristic viewers elsewhere in the Middle East, who gravitate more toward pan-Arabic satellite news channels where mayhem matters, TV viewers in Iraq prefer local knockoffs of the "The Newlywed Game," "Saturday Night Live," and lottery programs. As a result, interesting business models are emerging within TV systems in the new Mesopotamia, which vie for audience share. There are many channels in Iraq, the number of which grows steadily. Several channels have similar sounding names to westerners, such as al-Sumariyah (ancient region of southern Mesopotamia), and al-Sharqiyah (the Eastern), and there are lots of boasts in press releases about who is on top. To get the skinny from those who chart the daily fluctuations in the battle for hearts and minds in the Middle East, much like experts who are called upon to interpret the stock market, I logged onto Public Diplomacy on-line Help (PDH), which is known to be where many retired Foreign Service officers from the former U.S. Information Agency spend their time as anonymous consultants. You never know who is really on the other end of PDH, because they don't give their real names, and you make up yours as well. But their consultants do provide "the highest-quality service" as advertised, and Public Diplomacy Customer Care consultants are on call 24/7 -- which is especially important when you wake up at 3:00 AM with a question. "My question is this," I wrote, after giving my chat name as Fred to a public diplomacy consultant who said he was Stanley. "There are lots of TV channels available to viewers in Iraq," I said, "and they each boast about their audience ratings. Then there are the news channels that you hear about most of the time, but what about some of the other programs on Iraqi TV, like sports and movies? What do families like to watch together, and how about young people?" PDH: Thanks, Fred. Let me see if I understand. You want to know about the most popular TV channels in Iraq, and the types of programs Iraqis most like to watch. Is that right? Fred: Yes, but... PDH: Good. I have some excellent data on this, and I think I can help. There's an interesting article in the Transnational Broadcasting Studies Journal, by Joe Khalil and Dareen Abu Ghaida, who suggest that the TV satellite channels in the Middle East have their own corporate cultures. They market themselves differently to reach their target audiences and exploit their own competitive advantages. The most important element in success is promotion, since the channels can be received free of charge. The authors say that al-Jazeera, the pan-Arabic news channel, "positioned itself as the channel for Arab causes, with its coverage of the Palestinian intifada." It focuses on the "war's victims, Iraqi women and children, mostly on people...victimized or victorious." The political agenda of Al Jazeera, they say, is that it touts itself as "the only channel without a political agenda." But many refute this, saying the channel is beholden to its primary benefactor, the emir of Qatar, and to other Arab stockholders. Fred: What about TV news channels who claim they're gaining on al-Jazeera? PDD: There's an interesting book to be published this January by Larry Pintak, "Reflections in a Bloodshot Lens: America, Islam & the War of Ideas." Pintak is Director of the Adham Center for Electronic Journalism, the American University in Cairo. He is critical of some TV viewer polls in the Middle East, saying that polls commissioned by satellite channels that talk about x percent of "of satellite-equipped homes" that watch the channel are misleading. "Such polls," says Pintak, "make no distinction between individuals who paused briefly...out of curiosity while channel-surfing and those who used it as a primary source of information." Pintak, a former CBS News Middle East correspondent, also says that while a satellite channel may claim that most of its viewers feel it is a reliable news source, the "catch" is that it "represents a self-selected sample of the small percentage of the people who regularly tuned into the station, not Arab television viewers as a whole." Fred: What about the American and British satellite cable channels specifically, the BBC and the U.S.-funded Alhurra? PDH: Funny you should ask. A BBC insider, who doesn't want to be named, just passed along this observation. "In my view," said the source, "Iraqi viewers now have such a relatively wide choice of Arabic-language program to choose from on Iraqi and pan-Arab satellite TV channels -- around 20 currently on air in total -- that very few will watch American or British channels beamed specifically for Iraq audiences." You should keep in mind, Fred, that my source was talking about Iraq-only viewers, and not those of other Arab and Muslim states. But he went on to say that "Many Iraqis currently seem to crave escapist Western-style reality TV as represented by Al-Sharqiyah (which broadcasts programs in which destroyed family houses are rebuilt, or winning contestants have their marriage expenses paid, as well as comedy shows)." Fred: Isn't Al-Sharqiyah the satellite channel that broadcasts the Iraqi version of "Pop Idol?" PDH: No, that's another popular channel, Al-Sumariya TV. And BBC monitoring's Peter Feuiherade makes clear that "Viewers in Iraq are eager for more entertainment and comedy programs, especially those with a local flavour." Competitive audience rating surveys show that news channels have only one-quarter the number of viewers as entertainment channels. Fred: Does the BBC insider have any information on what's going on at the Pentagon-funded TV station in Iraq? PHD: That would be Al-Iraqiya. Yes, my BBC source tells me that Al-Iraqiya has "a large audience...because it can be viewed nationwide without a satellite dish. But much of its programming is pre-recorded in Cairo or Beirut, and is seen as either too pro-US or of no relevance to Iraqi viewers." Another popular channel is Al-Arabiya, the first of the pan-Arab satellite channels, as part of the Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC), with shareholders from the governments of Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain, and the Lebanese prime minister. Fred: I think I've got it. PDH: My pleasure. And to thank you today, you are eligible to claim a free $25 restaurant gift card when you enroll in the USIA Alumni Association. 2005-09-10T23:09:28+00:00 #When:19:25:48Z During the invasion of Iraq and for several months afterward, there were 700 embedded reporters with U.S. and coalition troops. Literally thousands of stories flowed from those reporters: from inside battle zones; from the streets of Baghdad where a young person would be observed rubbing the sole of the shoe on a toppled statue of Saddam Hussein dragged through the street; from dancing crowds enveloping coalition troops. All this in news reports helped shape early public perceptions about the Iraq war. Today the number of embeds has dwindled from 700 to 26, as reported to Worldcasting by Lt. Col. Barry Venable, Department of Defense press office spokesman. The reason for this is not difficult to comprehend. Since the start of the Iraq conflict in March 2003 -- less than two and a half years ago -- more journalists plus media support staff have been killed in that country than during the entire 20-year period of the Vietnam war. There were 70 media deaths in Vietnam. In Iraq, 81 media workers have been killed. As Adam Powell reported in Washington Journal, "Right now, the most memorable pictures from around the country (Iraq) come from video cameramen embedded with (or members of) the insurgency, showing bombings, beheadings and other anti-U.S. attacks of the day. The insurgents have grasped the power of the photograph, while U.S. media have largely abandoned the field, because it is too dangerous." Dorrance Smith, a former news chief of the U.S. military-funded TV station in Iraq, Al-Iraqiya, wrote in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed that numerous times the Arabic channel al-Jazeera "had advance knowledge of military actions against the coalition forces. Instead of reporting to the authorities that it had been tipped off, al-Jazeera would pre-position a crew at the event site and wait for the attack, record it and rush it on air." Journalistically speaking, the Iraq conflict has become a B-roll war. B-roll, as it is known in TV news parlance, contains the visual elements of a TV report, which is then "voiced-over" by the TV reporter's narration. But a new cadre of citizen journalists is beginning to counter the popular notion that a picture is worth a thousand words. That evolving press corps is comprised of military bloggers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their families at home. It is providing another dimension to the story of war, the human interest dimension. This "puts a face" on a news report, which television also craves, from Oprah to 60 Minutes, where someone has something compelling to communicate in their own words, to engage TV viewers. The new face of TV news is emerging first on the Internet, which will no doubt become part of TV somehow, as the technologies continue to converge. During the Vietnam war the average U.S. soldier spent five minutes on the phone every six weeks, says Jeffrey Cole, research professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication, where he is conducting a study of soldiers' use of e-mail. "During Vietnam," Cole told Worldcasting, "a GI's phone conversation consisted mainly of 'I love you,' 'I miss you,' and 'How are the kids?.' "Iraq is the first conflict where most soldiers have had almost daily access to home through a PC made available to them. Soldiers are connected in a way that makes them part of the daily lives of family and friends. They can help with homework and be involved with family finances. Some National Guardsmen try to stay in touch with their businesses back home." And e-mail does more than that to minimize the separation. There are hundreds of soldier bloggers on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere who report what they see and feel each day upon return to the barracks. Hundreds of retired military also maintain professional-looking web sites, as do thousands of military contractors from the private sector, who also blog. Will they replace real journalists? No. But they have an interactive connection with their readers that most journalists do not enjoy, and bloggers will continue to grow in number and influence. Will bloggers influence public attitudes about the war in Iraq? Yes, I believe they will, one way or the other. There are engaging bloggers who will likely be seen doing "news breaks" on cable news channels, appearing on Sunday news interview programs (perhaps their own) and working as mainstream TV reporters. And engineering geniuses will find new ways, with smaller and better computer equipment, to make Internet blogs competitive for audience share with TV news programs, as the technologies become more integrated. The number of military bloggers is nearing 1,000. One popular blog is Sgt. Lizzie's "Life in this Girl's Army." The Humvee carrying 24-year-old Sgt. Elizabeth Le Bel and her driver was hit by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad last December. Her driver was killed, but Sgt. Le Bel miraculously survived. During hospital recuperation, she sat down at a computer and became Sgt. Lizzy. She is now at a military base near Miami, and will soon be leaving the military, a step that's arousing in her strong and mixed emotions. Sgt. Lizzie blogs that she has "a very intense feeling right now. Everything I am, my identity, has been so wrapped around being in the Army, being Sgt. L., that I am uncertain now. I have been looking online, and have done my resume, but it is still a very unsettling thing to think about. Thankfully I have the support of my family and my wonderful sweetheart. I know that this will come out OK. I do enjoy challenges, so this is a new one to face. Life on the outside, here I come, better watch out! Dadmanley says his site is "Just one man's point of view, from the heart of Mesopotamia." He explains his name as: "Dadmanly. All Dad. All Man, and Manly. Coming soon as an animated feature (with robots and army men and laser guided missiles and stuff) to a Cineplex near you." Says Thunder6, perhaps a budding TV reviewer: "Yesterday I received a care package with DVDs of the FX show "Over There," a series loosely based on the experiences of soldiers here in Iraq. … My unit has spent the better part of a year here in Iraq attached to the 3rd Infantry Division (the unit highlighted in the show) and there wasn't a single scene that seemed even remotely plausible. (So) I will say that the show did an excellent job showing the audience one thing: That Hollywood has no clue what our experiences on the ground are really like." Local U.S. military jurisdictions review blog content for security violations. This week the Army warned bloggers to be mindful that what goes on the web can be read by the enemy. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker informed all Army personnel that images showing weapon systems and information about military tactics could "needlessly place lives at risk." But milbloggers just want to be themselves. Arkansas National Guardsmen wrote and recorded songs on a laptop which found their way on the Internet, one of which landed a record contract, with these lyrics: You want to talk about it, you better keep it short cause I got a lot of lost time I gotta make up for. Others express their views about the field of battle, like a milblog serviceman who fights insurgents in the streets of Iraq. "We always talked about having the old beehive rounds," he writes, "a giant 120mm shotgun shell filled with 10,000 flashettes - tiny metal arrowhead-looking things. Whenever we had looked down a side street, there were always 10-30 insurgents with RPGs running up and down the parallel streets taking shots at us. And when we shot at them, we either had to spray with coax (a tank machine gun) or hit a guy with main gun. We could have killed so many more insurgents down every alleyway with a beehive round." Then there is Major K, who tells readers he writes from Iraq "because someone has to…" "The exchange of ideas can be a wonderful and fascinating process," says Major K. "It can also be very painstaking and frustrating. In training the new Iraqi Army, getting the message across is a very long and cumbersome process. I spend most of my time training the senior officers of the General Staff of the 6th Infantry Division. I am usually training men who are not only older than me, but of higher rank. In this war, every soldier has to be a little bit of a diplomat sometimes. I am now one most of the time." Spouses of Iraq milbloggers have their own websites for others to read and contemplate, like Christy, whose husband Ryan battles the enemy in Iraq's Red Zone.: "Right now," writes Christy, "I'm missing things I can't remember about Ryan. The little things. The sound of his voice escapes me sometimes. I try to play it, to remember it in my head, but it slips away. "I wonder what his face looks like when it's not blurred through the Web cam connection. When I see it clearly, or in pictures, it's a surprise. Wow, Ryan has eyebrows. "His smell. It's gone from his shirts, the combination of soap and Red Zone deodorant. I brought them out today but I smelled nothing. I may be reduced to sniffing men's deodorant in the aisle of Wal-Mart soon." The Mudville Gazette, run by an active duty serviceman who calls himself Greyhawk, cautions "The reader will kindly forgive any tendency to rough language or behavior on the part of the site owner.…Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence in their behalf." "When a soldier is killed or wounded," reports Greyhawk, "the Department of Army calls the loved ones, and despite their attempts to be sympathetic, the nature of the calls has a way of shocking the families. There is just no easy way to say, 'Your son got shot today….' Lt. Col. Kurilla likes to call before the Army gets a chance to tell parents and loved ones the true circumstances. Kurilla is direct, but at least people know they are getting an accurate account.. The calls sound something like this: 'We are sorry to inform you that your son has been shot in Mosul. He's stable, but that's all we know at this time.'" From Michael Yon's blogspot: "Chaplain Wilson came out from the hospital smiling and explained that Daniel (Sgt. Lama) was fine. The seizure was just a natural reaction to getting shot in the neck. It was just a flesh wound. As if offering proof, Chaplain Wilson said: 'When they rolled Daniel over, the doctor stuck his finger in Daniel's butt to check his prostate, and Daniel said, 'Hey! What are you doing?' Everybody laughed." And this from a milblogger back in New York City, awaiting his return to Iraq for his second tour of duty. "I went to see my family before going to Iraq," he reports. "It was really a nice visit. I get to be here for the baby. That's a huge plus, and I know it will make things better on Anne, but I still feel really weird about the whole thing." This prompted Barb, a reader, to post her comment: "Good that you will be home for the baby's birth - but I know you were ready to go. Just remember the lines from Shakespeare in Love..". "It'll work out." "How?" "I don't know ... it's a mystery." # posted by Barb : 1:01 AM This is America's new face, coming soon to your TV. 2005-09-06T19:25:48+00:00