June 22, 2008
U.S.-Funded Arab TV's Credibility Crisis
60 Minutes/ProPublica Joint Investigation Finds Anti-Israel Rhetoric On U.S.-Funded Al Hurra TV
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Play CBS Video Video U.S. Funds News In The Mideast 60 Minutes and ProPublica investigate Al Hurra, a television channel in the Middle East that is funded by U.S. taxpayers, which has come under scrutiny for a raft of problems. Scott Pelley reports.
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Video Radio Sawa Report Hamid Alkifaey was a managing director for Al Hurra. He says that after he left, Radio Sawa broadcast a story in which an unidentified speaker called for the deaths of more U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
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Video Al Hurra's Baghdad Bureau Danny Nassif is Al Hurra's current news director, his first job in television news. We interviewed him shortly after Al Hurra's Baghdad bureau chief resigned.
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Al Hurra, headquartered in Springfield, Va., is funded by U.S. taxpayers. (CBS)
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Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, is one of the most important political leaders in the region, but he's considered a terrorist by the U.S. government.
"You run that speech and a lot of people are watching it," Register says. "And every other Arab channel in the Middle East carried it. I think you look kind of un-credible if you don't cover it."
"This is a man considered a terrorist by the U.S. government, and you gave him an hour, live, on the air," Pelley remarks.
"Right. I considered it news. I considered it newsworthy," Register says.
Weeks later Register, okayed coverage of something more controversial, the so-called Holocaust deniers' conference in Iran. In that moment, the American Al Hurra sounded more like Al Jazeera.
According to the translation, the Al Hurra reporter said, "Despite the assurances of some of the participants that millions of Jews had in fact died during a German Holocaust, the group did not reinforce their statements with scientific evidence, but instead they were content to tell stories passed on to them by their ancestors."
"How does a reporter like that get on the air in an American newsroom?" Pelley asks.
"The quality of reporting when I got there was weak and poor. And that's how it happened," Register admits. "The person would do the story, send a script, send the piece, it would go to air. There weren't checks and balances to stop it from happening."
When it did happen, The Wall Street Journal's op-ed page called for Register's head; members of Congress said they would cut funding for the channel if Register remained.
Turned out "The Free One" had a bridle after all. Register resigned.
"One of the things we're not allowed to do is we're not allowed to provide a platform for terrorists," Jim Glassman says.
"The incident when Nasrallah was on the air for nearly an hour, live. That was a mistake?" Pelley asks.
"Right. It was a mistake. It was a violation of our guidelines," Glassman says.
But making sure that the guidelines are followed is tough because Al Hurra is not seen in the U.S. and no translation is provided to U.S. government overseers or the Congress.
"Was there anyone in management from the Board of Governors on down who spoke Arabic fluently who was monitoring what was on the broadcast day in and day out?" Pelley asks.
"No," Register says.
"The U.S. government is spending hundreds of million of dollars on this and we don’t know what's on this channel?" Pelley asks.
"Well the State Department has a team that watches it. But in the chain that you just mentioned, no fluent Arabic speakers," Register says.
Asked if that seems wise to him, Register says, "No."
Al Hurra's top executive is Brian Conniff, who does not speak Arabic. His new news director, Danny Nassif, does speak Arabic but has no TV experience and little journalism background. Conniff says that they are working together to prevent a repeat of some of the channel’s more embarrassing moments.
"We have now a fully functioning assignment desk that views all packages and scripts before they go on the air," Conniff says. "I have an independent monitoring system with the organization. I have somebody who watches the channel. Not, obviously, 24 hours a day, but on a random basis."
"You have somebody watching the channel for you?" Pelley asks.
"Yes, I do," Conniff says.
"Essentially, telling you what's on the channel?" Pelley asks,
"Yes. Yes," Conniff replies.
Produced by Graham Messick, Michael Karzis, Dafna Linzer and Michael Radutzky
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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See all 311 Commentsre: 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.
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
It''s called a propaganda machine, and is quite evidently the same here in the U.S.
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.
Religion = cult behavior
If you do not question, you are brainwashed.
Posted by JoeCoolSwat at 10:12 AM : Jun 23, 2008
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
Let get together and estimate how fast I wipe the floor with your Emo hair
My Estimate: Zero
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See all 311 Comments