Radio Sawa is one of the USA's foreign broadcasting facilities. It airs six different Arabic feeds covering areas from Sudan to Iraq that provide "news" alongside Arabic and American pop music and is produced and broadcast from Washington, DC, and Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. Among Radio Sawa's fervent supporters are Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Sen. Joseph Biden.
But its future may not be bright. Kenneth Tomlinson, head of the federal agency that oversees most US government broadcasts to foreign countries, is under investigation for misuse of federal money and the use of phantom or unqualified employees. This is the same Ken Tomlinson who resigned from the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting after being suspected of using his position to push partisan political messages. On top of that, Tomlinson is being sued by five former Voice of America (VOA) employees who claim he ousted them in favor of inexperienced Lebanese workers.
A detailed American Prospect article likens the management of US Arabic media operations to a fiefdom:
[News director Mouafac] Harb resembles Ahmad Chalabi back in the days when the Iraqi buccaneer was the favorite of American officialdom. He spins the story of the Arabic services' success to legislators and reporters, charms political patrons in both political parties, and offers a product that at least looks slick and professional to Americans who don't understand Arabic. Like Chalabi, the broadcasting potentate lives well on US largesse, although neither Tomlinson's board nor Harb's spokesman will disclose his taxpayer-funded salary. Sources at [Sawa's partner TV station] Al-Hurra say that he drives a Hummer (average price: $50,000), and according to real-estate records, he recently brought a $750,000 home in a well-to-do northern Virginia suburb.Even so, are the US's Arabic-language broadcasts effective? Former Ambassador William Rugh, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute and author of an influential book on Arabic media, has called Al-Hurra "a big waste of money." In an article in the Transnational Broadcasting Studies Journal, Rugh writes:
When Senator Biden and others visited the Al-Hurra production studios they were dazzled by state-of-the-art equipment, and by the fact that the staff members are native speakers of Arabic, so they decided that the programs "must be good." Without any real independent oversight by knowledgeable people, these efforts will continue, whether they are worth the cost or not.After the scouring FEMA received for its alleged cronyism and ineptness after Hurricane Katrina, can we spare a little media and public attention for the alleged waste, cronyism, and inept management of those responsible for US Arabic-language broadcasts? Or, in the name of the war on terrorism, will it continue as business as usual?
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