U.S.-Funded Arab TV's Credibility Crisis

60 Minutes/ProPublica Joint Investigation Finds Anti-Israel Rhetoric On U.S.-Funded Al Hurra TV

(CBS)  America has been struggling with its image in the Middle East for decades but, after Iraq, Arab opinion plummeted. The Bush administration felt it had to act fast to explain America to the Arab world. So it began spending about $100 million a year on a U.S. government news channel in Arabic. It's called "Al Hurra," meaning "The Free One."

As correspondent Scott Pelley reports, Al Hurra's symbol is a herd of unbridled horses, and for American taxpayers it's been a wild ride.

60 Minutes has been looking into Al Hurra in a project with ProPublica, a new, non-profit news organization dedicated to investigative journalism. With so much at stake at Al Hurra, we were surprised to find what it's putting on the air. Some of it has supported terrorism and denied the Holocaust; insiders say Al Hurra has been undermined by loose financial and editorial controls, while its executives try to manage 24-hour news in a language most of them don't understand.

---

In 2004, as the president prepared to make his State of the Union Address, any Arabs who were watching were probably tuned in to popular Arabic news channels like Al Jazeera, which tend to devote airtime time to America's enemies. But on this night President Bush announced that the U.S. government was getting into the Arab news business.

Maybe it was an odd idea that news of the Middle East would be edited and broadcast from Springfield, Va. Al Hurra, the U.S. government news channel broadcast throughout the Middle East in Arabic, is headquartered there.

"We need an alternative voice in the Middle East. Whether Al Jazeera existed or not," says Jim Glassman, who until last week was the chairman of the government's Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice Of America, Radio Free Europe, and now Al Hurra television.

"Our idea with Al Hurra was to create a network to provide high quality, professional journalism with American standards. I think we've done that," Glassman says.

But people in the Middle East, including U.S. diplomats who speak Arabic, have been complaining about Al Hurra's "quality" and "professionalism."

The channel got off to a bad start in 2004. After Israel assassinated the founder of the militant group Hamas, Al Hurra stuck with a cooking show.

"They were doing a program on how to make salmon sandwiches for weddings. Well, how can you be credible if you don't cover one of the biggest stories of the day, in the Middle East?" asks Larry Register, a former CNN executive with 20 years of experience, who was brought in a-year-and-half ago to rescue the channel.

But Register says he found his staff of Arabs, imported from the region, divided along religious, ethnic and political lines. Asked what state the channel was in when he first walked in the Al Hurra newsroom, Register tells Pelley, "Dysfunctional, extremely dysfunctional."

"Words like militias were thrown around," he explains. "There was this militia that was in charge of this, and this militia in charge of that."

"It felt like you were living in the Middle East. It felt like somebody had picked up the Middle East and brought it to Springfield, Virginia, of all places," Register remembers.

When Register wanted to put on breaking news his first week, he says he found his staff was out to lunch, literally. "There was nobody there. The whole newsroom was empty," he remembers. "Everybody'd gone to lunch. So I'm asking, 'Well, what is this?' 'Well, they take three hour lunches in between programs.'"

Al Hurra's staff was mostly Lebanese Christian, which undermined its credibility in the broader, Islamic, Middle East.

Even worse, Register says he found Al Hurra was paying its vendors far more for services than well-run networks. "It infuriated me as a U.S. citizen to walk in there and seein' the money just flowin' out the door. A true waste of taxpayer money," he says.

Register cleaned house, firing people, renegotiating contracts, and trying to fulfill every news director's mandate. "Needed to get more viewers. Wanted higher viewer-ship across the pan-Arab world. We wanted to get a bigger audience," he explains.

How do you do that?

"I think you do that by becoming more credible. Covering more news aggressively," Register says.

Asked what being "more credible" means, Register tells Pelley, "Not just picking and choosing what you might want to cover because it's favorable for your side versus their side. Cover all of it. Tell the whole story. Part of the idea is Al Hurra is the free one. The name is 'The Free One.'"

[reply60min]

nice followup on leher w/telhami. pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june08/alhurra_06-23.html

re: holocaust "denier" conference, the position taken is that the deaths are woefully over advertised in comparison to 20M native americans killed, 10-20 chinese killed by japan, etc. Bush''s dig against ahmadenijad is pure hypocrisy. it was the respected john hopkins/lancet journal using the best scientific methods estimated 665k iraqi deaths (later report 1M). bush was asked about their report to which he replied "I think..30k give or take". This is like ahmadinijad taking the same liberties of downward revision of 6M jews to 270k deaths.

[kerbie2]

Everyone in this world has a selective memory cause if you told the whole truth about something you may lose something and no one wants to lose. I for one think that there is a place in this country for a news channel such as Al Hurra and funded by the US, but what is put on air should be the TRUTH and nothing but the TRUTH. If this were done the right way there would be a fluently Aribic speaking and undersanding staff that could monitor what was being aired. If there is an hour devoted to a thought to be terrorist then there should be a rebutal devoted to his or her statements. I for one am not a god fearing person, but it seems to me that there is some validity to what is written in religious texts and to what is going on in the world today. What is aired on this station should be aired without US goverment involvment whatsoever and should not be edited in anyway shape or form, tell it like it is and let the people that it is supposed to be reaching form there own oppinion as to what is the truth and what they wanna beleive. Who in the world are we to tell anybody what is right and what is wrong, seeing that we can not get it right in this country either. We are at war at home just as we are at war in the Middle East. Now there is something to be said for human rights and what is going on all over this world is wrong.

[a2rkowski]

60 minutes, your journalistic standards have really slipped. Watching this segment yesterday, I waited and waited for you to explain exactly what was false or inaccurate in the statement you aired by the reporter who covered the holocaust deniers'' conference (the one you finally got fired). I expected it to be something big, something really damning, on the order of the reporting that got Dan Rather fired. But I waited and waited in vain.

Please correct this omission before scheduling this segment for reruns, and next time try your best to return to the reporting standards of Al Jazeera and the BBC that you attained in the past (pre-Laura Logan and Blackwater).

A. Tworkowski
Glendale, CA 91204

[tvmonitor]

Larry Register has a selective memory. Insiders say that as VP of News Operations at Alhurra, he signed off on the continuation of these agreements. He was informed of the nature, scope of work, and costs and did nothing seek competition for same or similar services. Not surprising, since most of the agreements were fixed priced under the FAR rules and the vendors assumed the the risk of economy and efficiency to produce and deliver on a moment''s notice; and did so.

[snagletooth8]

The US has wasted many millions on an ill-conceived and poorly executed war on terrorism. Those who believe that the US is creating a war against Islam should denounce the fanatic rantings of the extremist leadership and take control of the majority of moderate Muslims. As long as Muslims are controlled and led by extremists, the animosity between the Muslim world and the Western world will continue.

[crescentgirl]

I don''t really think Al Hurra is going to get anywhere in the minds of Arabs or Muslims for that matter until they truly are free to discuss American and Israeli policy critically...until that happens...it''s just another mouthpiece for American propaganda. Why do u think Al-jazeera and other arab channels are so popular among the middle east population and the larger Muslim population? Because they discuss and provide a view point that no American news station even wants to fathom...maybe U.S./Israeli policy is hypocritcal/unfair etc. Maybe we are supporting human suffering and a tyrannical gov''t..maybe our friends are the opressors (not our enemies as we are led to believe)...huh..interesting eh? That''s why my friends. Living in the U.S....I would much rather watch Al-jazeera, BBC, NPR...anything else than the slanted American news garbage that passes for news every day in the U.S.

[lochlan-2009]

"So it began spending about $100 million a year on a U.S. government news channel in Arabic."

It''s called a propaganda machine, and is quite evidently the same here in the U.S.

[crescentgirl]

This is just more American propaganda...why would anyone in the middle east or here in the u.s. want to watch garbage? I say stick with Al-jazeera and get the real story on American policies in the ME.

[bluestardad]

QUIT FUNDING ANYONE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

[ustaxpayer12]

I do not want any of my tax dollars funding the Al Hurra broadcast.
The $500 million should have been used for people in this country, ie social security, and the homeless, etc,etc, too many to list here!
What an embarrassing shame this is and i understand why USA citizens are ashamed of our government.

[superdem]

JoeCoolSwat - does God want you calling people horrible names and threatening them ? Does God need the likes of you, with the ethics of a thug, defending Him ? Your posts violate every lesson Jesus ever taught. You''re a very poor advocate for religion AND for democracy. Judge not, lest YE be judged. Liberty and justice for ALL.

[superdem]

America HAS no credibility in the Middle East, so this propaganda machine was doomed from the start. We blatantly favor the Israelis, so everything is seen from that lense, and we label anyone who is not a Zionist a terrorist. It''s as if we were defending the South African government during apartheid, which we did for a long time. Having someone named Glassman calling major arab politicians terrorists and keeping them off the air says it all. It''s like having Republicans directing Air America. No one could possibly take it seriously. Americans already know they can''t believe their own press, why would arabs believe the American version of Middle East news ?

[inventagod2]

Religion = cult behavior

If you do not question, you are brainwashed.

[ddaryl1]

Religion is now the root of all evil.

[ddaryl1]

hungry1968.....just keep up your hate for christians, and Jewish people and you''''''''re attempt to destroy God and remove God from this country....just keep it up, that''''''''s what you do best....keep up the bad work

Posted by JoeCoolSwat at 10:12 AM : Jun 23, 2008

[joecoolswat]

zoe2006......No laws establishing OR the free excersize therof

NO LAWS AGAINST THE FREE EXCERSIZE THEREOF.....you know what that means? It means you don''t have a right to be free from religion

[joecoolswat]

hkjonus.....Do you have something to say to me?

Let get together and estimate how fast I wipe the floor with your Emo hair

[hkjonus]

Everyone let''s estimate JoeCoolSwat''s IQ. Highest bidder has to keep responding to his stupid arguments until Jesus Christ comes back to Earth. BTW, it ain''t gonna happen so that means forever.

My Estimate: Zero

[joecoolswat]

hungry1968....why are you naming radical evangelical christian celebrities as you''re evidence of every day American religion....forget it, sorry I brought it up.....obviously you were traumatized when you were younger....I feel sorry for you

[joecoolswat]

hungry1968....you pick a select few of the worst cults in history, as examples of American Christians? If this is your impression of what everyday religion in America is about, you are sicker than I thought.