NEW YORK, 16 April 2003 — Sometime this week, Iraqis with television reception will turn on their sets and see a parade of new faces delivering the evening news: Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Jim Lehrer and Brit Hume.
The news package — which will also include nightly programming produced by Arab journalists in Washington and the Middle East — is part of an ambitious effort that White House officials say will show Iraq what a free press looks like in a democracy.
“Iraq and the World,’’ funded by the US government, will feature nightly contributions from CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS and Fox News translated into Arabic, and is spearheaded by Norm Pattiz, the Los Angeles-based chairman of the Westwood One radio network. He said the new project marks “the first time that we have had a horse in the TV race’’ to compete with coverage from Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language satellite TV channel, and other media sources. CNN declined to participate in the broadcasting program.
The introduction of US evening news to Iraqis, who have lived with state-controlled media for decades, could be a revolutionary change for that culture, Pattiz said. But a host of critics suggest that the move may also spark a backlash in a shell-shocked society that is already deeply suspicious of American motives, and in no mood to trust the information or worldview conveyed by US journalists.
“It might be a pretty huge cultural disconnect for Iraqis to turn on a TV and suddenly see Dan Rather,’’ said Mamoun Fandy, professor of politics and media at Georgetown University and a widely syndicated columnist in the Arab world.
“Ideally, you should be encouraging Iraqis to produce their own nightly news, and if the US is serious about communicating, they wouldn’t rush to put something like this on the air.’’
Others credit the White House for trying to get an American message across as soon as possible, yet warn that “any media we broadcast which has the backing of our government will be suspect, because you can’t export democracy overnight,’’ said Nancy Snow, author of “Propaganda Inc.’’ and a professor at California State University, Fullerton.
The Iraqi people have learned to be deeply distrustful of many institutions, she added, “so why should they suddenly believe what they see on our nightly news?’’
Pattiz, 60, is a member of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, an autonomous federal agency that also operates the Voice of America broadcasting service. He concedes that “Iraq and the World’’ faces big hurdles.
But he believes he will succeed, just as he did last year in launching Radio Sawa, a 24-hour US government-sponsored radio station in the region that blends American and Arabic popular music with news broadcasts. The station has become a market phenomenon, reaching an estimated 40 percent of its target 18- to 39-year-old demographic, and the increasingly popular station is spawning French and British imitators, he noted.
“Obviously we’re going to have to combat the idea that we’re broadcasting propaganda with the Iraq project,’’ Pattiz said. “But the best way to handle this is to confront the problem head on. To show a free press in action, and to walk the walk.’’
White House officials asked him last week to get the new commercial-free project operating as soon as possible, Pattiz said. He received quick approval from the heads of US news divisions to beam their complete nightly broadcasts uncensored into Iraq via Commando Solo, a fleet of US military cargo planes that fly over the country.
At first, the broadcasts will be limited to six-hour blocks “because that’s how long the plane can stay up,’’ Pattiz said. But ground transmitters are expected to be functioning within a matter of days, making 24-hour-a-day broadcasts possible, he added. Currently, an estimated 10 percent of the Iraq’s 24 million people has a television set, “but that doesn’t mean only 10 percent is watching. It’s like television in America in the 1950s; one person on the block has a set, but others come around to watch,’’ Pattiz said.
As he works to get “Iraq and the World’’ off the ground, Pattiz is also marshaling an effort to create a government-backed news channel for the Middle East, which would compete with Al-Jazeera and other 24-hour satellite broadcasts. Assuming that Congress appropriates the $30 million proposed for the regional television project, Pattiz said it could begin operations before the end of the year.
