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they had kept up with events by
tuning in to RCI.
Radio Netherlands (RNW)
Radio Netherlands is providing extensive
analytical material on the war, and its website
describes a wealth of reports on Iraq, on
Operation Iraqi Freedom, the events preceding
it, Europe and the conflict, and how the
Netherlands views it. Many of the background
segments include audio components, and a
dossier on the Iraqi media at http://
/
iraq.html offers a comprehensive, up to date
look at U.S. and coalition broadcasts to Iraq.
RNW’s
Amsterdam Forum
discussion
programme has focused on the crisis a number
of times, and recently reflected the views of
the Iraqi community in the Netherlands,
whose views are divided on the war. RNW has
added frequencies to the Middle East for radio
and for its Dutch language TV service. RNW
recently had a record day for page views to
current affairs material on its website.
Although the Dutch government officially
supports the war, specialist Sennitt said,
“many people still perceive Radio Netherlands
as providing balanced coverage.”
International broadcast research over the years
has shown that balanced and objective
programmes gain listeners, viewers and
Internet readers. Many Arab TV stations glorify
or justify suicide attacks against coalition
forces, repeating again and again footage of
the March 29 attack in which an Iraqi soldier
killed himself and four U.S. servicemen.
Pentagon psywar stations such as Information
Radio or Radio Tikrit aim, along with leaflet
campaigns, to encourage Iraqi army desertions
and to sew dissension in the highest ranks of
Saddam’s regime. But it’s doubtful that such
tactical programming, however attractive to
their producers in a time of battle, can sustain
mass audiences in the long run.
The verdict over time rests with those
audiences. With all the unprecedented
information about the Iraq war at their
fingertips in real time, they are becoming a
remarkably discerning lot. A reporter for the
South Florida Sun-Sentinel in the United
States visited the region recently and spoke
in Amman with a 40-year-old clothing
salesman named Ayman. “You see these
images (of women and children dying),” said
Ayman, “and you just become enraged and
then you want to cry. At first, I was crying
for these Iraqi civilians, but you know, I am
crying too for the mothers of these dead
soldiers. Their loss is just as great.”
Alan Heil is a broadcasting consultant who was
Deputy Director of the Voice of America.
Heil is speaking at the AIB Global Media
Business Conference in London on 29-30 April
2003.
Carlo Middle East (RMCME) in Arabic, also
benefit from strengthened on-site coverage in
Iraq and surrounding countries. Datelines
include Baghdad, northern Iraq, Doha, Kuwait
City, Beirut, Amman, Ankara, Gaza, Jerusalem
and the West Bank. The network reports that
during the first ten days of the war, activity on
its worldwide website increased 35 percent and
more than tripled on RMCME. That network is
well positioned for handling the Iraq war, with
FM relays in Amman, Damascus, Doha, Manama
and Khartoum. The
Financial Times
of London
reports that the Chirac government’s opposition
to the Iraq war has given “unstoppable
momentum” to France’s long held dream of a
worldwide government-funded television
service. RFI director general Jean-Paul Cluzel is
working on a proposal for marshalling the
resources of French state-run media for the TV
project. “It is absurd,” Cluzel says, “for France
which has major global responsibilities, not to
have an international television service.”
Radio Canada International
(
RCI
)
Radio Canada International has greatly
expanded its news and current affairs content
since March 20. Documentaries on the war,
including the views of Canadian experts, are
produced daily for the English and French
services. Arabic broadcasts have increased from
an hour to an hour and a half daily. One half
hour is relayed by Radio Monte Carlo Middle
East, a second by the Voice of Lebanon, and a
third beamed to the entire region on shortwave.
The debate in Canada by opponents and
supporters of the war is covered extensively,
including the controversy in parliament over
the government’s decision to place 31 Canadian
soldiers on the ground in Iraq. This was reported
in the network’s excellent daily Internet text
service, RCI Cyberjournal. Several Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation reporters in the Middle
East say their contacts have mentioned listening
to RCI shortwave broadcasts. RCI executive
director Jean Larin reports that among the
listeners are newly arrived Iraqi refugees in
Syria, who recently told a correspondent of the
predominantly music network, Radio Farda in
Persian, combined staff from VOA and RFE’s
highly respected but recently closed Radio
Azadi in Persian. It broadcasts around eight
hours daily of news and roundtable discussion
programmes. The U.S. Broadcasting Board of
Governors decided last year to retain VOA
Persian on shortwave four hours a day. That
service broadcasts U.S., Iranian and world news
in depth, cultural programmes, and it has an
enhanced website. Its 2 ½ hours of radio-
television simulcasts each week includes a new
one hour program for youth.
Deutsche Welle (DW)
On March 30, the German external broadcaster
Deutsche Welle launched a long-planned
reform of its English service, doubling its
current affairs radio magazine
Newslink
from
four to eight programmes daily. The
programmes are highly-targeted and include
updated news hourly, according to a DW news
release. This expanded access coincides with
the first weeks of the war in Iraq. Last June,
Deutsche Welle added an Arabic and an
English radio channel to its then existing
services on Nilesat 101, gaining access to an
estimated four to five million households from
Egypt to Morocco and northern Chad, Mali,
Niger and Sudan. Last year, DW estimated that
its 24/7 television service in German and
English had 22 million viewers worldwide.
That likely will increase during the current
crisis and as DW shifts more resources into
the Internet and what its website calls “a
substantial extension of re-broadcasting.”
Radio France Internationale
RFI and its associated network, Radio Monte
War and reconstruction in Iraq:
the ultimate test for international broadcasters?
A US government-funded CNN?
The Middle East subcommittee chairman of the
U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors is
Norman J. Pattiz, who also strongly advocates a
Middle East Television Network (MTN) to the
Arab world. Pattiz, the architect of the new
youth-oriented Radios Sawa and Farda, is the
chief executive officer of Westwood One, the
largest syndicator of radio all-news and music
programming in the United States. He has been
energetically lobbying Congress and the Bush
administration for funds to pay for the new
Arabic language television service. He has been
lining up support in Hollywood and elsewhere in
the television industry to provide programmes
for MTN. According to Pattiz, the service could
be on the air six months after its start up cost of
over $60 million dollars is appropriated by
Congress. He is confident the funds will be in
hand later in 2003. (VOA and Worldnet
television already have hundreds of affiliates
worldwide in languages other than Arabic).
Is anyone watching?
