THE DAILY STAR 07/13/2006
By Michael Shank

Broadcasting its message throughout the Middle East, the US government’s communications campaign is extensive, strategic and extremely well financed. From Radio Farda in Iran to television’s Al-Iraqiyya in Iraq, the US government operates a multi-million dollar marketing campaign most intensively in Iraq and Iran but more broadly throughout the entire Middle East region. What is unfortunate, however, is that the communications campaign is not reciprocated.

Compare the number of media stations that the US government funds to intentionally target the Middle East with the number of media stations that Middle Eastern nations fund to intentionally target residents of the United States. What emerges is an extraordinarily disproportionate figure.

Radio Farda – a radio station based in Washington, receiving $7 million in federal funding – targets young Iranian citizens with news and entertainment of a distinctly American flavor. Al-Iraqiyya – engineered, not-so-coincidentally, by the Pentagon, with an operating budget of nearly $100 million – targets Iraqi citizens with a daily news hour and a weekly 15-minute show featuring political figures who discuss plans for the transition of sovereignty and the future of Iraq. Al-Hurra and Radio Sawa – a television and radio duo designed by the US government and each operating on federally funded budgets exceeding $35 million – saturate the Middle East with news and public affairs programming. It is worth noting that neither Al-Hurra nor Radio Sawa is available for American consumption. And let’s not forget the not-so-subtly titled Voice of America, the US government’s venerable public relations mechanism, which beams into every available satellite receptacle from Beirut to Basra.

In contrast, with the exception of an Al-Jazeera office set to officially open its Washington office this year, the American audience remains largely untapped. Americans interested in television or radio news from Middle East sources are only afforded Link TV, a small production company based in the United States that produces MOSAIC, a daily overview of television news clips from Middle East sources.

Why the discrepancy? Why have governments in the Middle East not followed US precedent and engineered and funded stations in America? Why have television and radio stations in Lebanon, Qatar, and the UAE – a few of the region’s media powerhouses – neglected American audiences? Have they not considered pumping Nancy Ajram and Nawal Zoghby into Washington like Radio Farda pumps Madonna and Celine Dion into Tehran? Have they not considered a Voice of the Middle East to mirror the ever-ubiquitous Voice of America?

Perhaps Arab and Muslim governments are unwilling to fund such media sources because they don’t want to be harassed by the United States. Perhaps these governments want to avoid the boycotting of interviews and suspicion that Al-Jazeera International reportedly faces – as documented in a Washington Post op-ed on June 25, 2006, by the Qatar-based news network titled “Al-Jazeera, As American as Apple Pie.” Or perhaps Arab and Muslim governments are simply disinclined to portray a better image of the Arab/Middle Eastern culture.

Whatever the fear or reticence, it behooves these media powerhouses to overcome it. Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiyya, Dubai TV and others would do well to consider broadcasting stations in New York, Los Angeles or Washington. Not only is the market ripe with nearly 2 million Middle Eastern immigrants living in the United States, but more importantly, the American public needs to have more opportunities to learn about the Middle East than what is currently available. Presently, the American public is receiving their news vis-a-vis the Middle East from television networks like CNN and Fox – two networks criticized for their pro-Bush inclinations – and from local radio stations that have little capacity to provide substantial international news coverage. Spend a few days observing and listening to these networks’ reports and a viewer is inclined to come away with an understanding that the Middle East is fraught with angry Arabs and Muslims – half of which are already terrorists or will soon become terrorists. It’s a desperate and sad reality but it’s true.

The portal through which Americans view the Middle East is frightfully narrow and frequently biased. What the American public desperately needs is access to multiple perspectives and diverse accounts of Middle East politics and culture. But this will not happen on the US watch. US-based television and radio outlets will not rise up to ensure that balanced and fair reporting on the Middle East occurs. Consequently, what must ensue is a communications campaign in the reverse, and in English – lest the stereotyping of Middle Easterners by CNN and Fox continue unabated. Fortunately, the media mavens from Beirut to Dubai are poised to kick-start this campaign. It is time to start marketing the Middle East.

Michael Shank is the press secretary for Citizens for Global Solutions, a Washington-based foreign policy advocacy organization.