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July 18, 2002, 9:55 a.m. The Sounds of Sawa An alternative to al-Jazeera.

ix top-ten American and Arabic pop tunes with cultural and sports headlines from Baghdad, President Bush's weekly radio address, and hard-hitting commentary from leading conservative political journals, and you have the sound of Radio Sawa, the hip replacement for Voice of America's (VOA) now-defunct Arabic service in the Middle East. Formally known as the Middle East Radio Network (MERN), the Arabic-language pilot operation appeals to young people in the region — about 60 percent of the population is under the age of 30 — and provides fast-paced, substantive, and uncensored news that acts as a counter to the sensationalistic coverage of events by Arab media giant al-Jazeera.

And people are listening. On the air for just three months, Radio Sawa is already the number-one radio station in eight Arab countries, reaching ten times the number of people Voice of America Arabic reached in 50 years. MERN is in many respects repairing a damaged VOA image, and should serve as a model for any sort of reorganization or redirection of resources at VOA.

MERN is the baby of Norman J. Pattiz, founder and chairman of America's largest radio network, Westwood One, Inc., and a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) — the independent, bipartisan body that oversees all U.S. government-sponsored international broadcasting. Sent on a fact-finding trip by the BBG long before September 11 to determine whether VOA had any impact in the Middle East, Pattiz discovered that it had virtually none. A "one-size-fits-all" format of Arabic programming was being broadcast over shortwave to all 22 countries in the region by a barely audible signal out of the Island of Rhodes. Only 1-2 percent of the population was listening to VOA Arabic — and, as he noted in testimony before the House Committee on International Relations in November 2001, this was at a time when we had the "Israeli-Palestinian problem, rampant anti-Americanism, hate radio, and yes, the breeding ground for radical Islamic fundamentalism."

After the attacks on America last fall, MERN moved its launch date up from summer to March 23, and is currently broadcasting Radio Sawa on FM transmitters in Amman, Jordan, Kuwait City, Kuwait, and in the United Arab Emirates cities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. AM radio out of Kuwait covers Iraq and Rhodes. Within the month, Pattiz predicts that Radio Sawa will be heard from transmitters in Cyprus and broadcast to Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria. Many listeners — including those in Saudi Arabia who have access to satellite dishes — can listen to the station now, and in five or six months, transmitters in Djibouti will broadcast Radio Sawa to even more people across that region and others in the Middle East.

Additionally, six unique streams of the operation will be tailored to fit the nuances and dialects of particular Arabic-speaking countries, including those in Sudan and Tangier. The first such stream — Radio Sawa Iraq — was launched on June 6, bringing President Bush's call for the removal of Saddam Hussein directly into Baghdad. Daily press roundups, newscasts, and commentary come from the Western press, but Radio Sawa Iraq's journalists also bring Iraqi listeners everyday stories about the history of their own culture and civilization. Recent non-political stories included "Iraqis love their ice cream" and "Iraqi folklore troupes find a creative outlet in Arab cultural festivals."

As with any new taxpayer-funded or government-supported program, MERN, which has an initial budget of $30 million, has received a fair amount of criticism — much of it from within the VOA establishment. "Whenever you create change there will be some people who yearn for the old days," says a diplomatic Pattiz. There have been complaints that Radio Sawa plays too much music and not enough news, is insufficiently pro-Palestinian, and criticizes the Arab world too much. There have also been complaints that the operation is too research based, or too slow to incorporate more news. But Radio Sawa is a success in large part because it did its research and found out that a large, younger Middle Eastern audience has one foot placed in the past but also one foot firmly in the future. That's why Sawa can broadcast both Western and Arabic music and provide a pro-America message, without being soft on the problems in the Middle East at the same time. "We are for the first time successfully using a Western format to attract a Middle Eastern audience in order to deliver the largest possible public diplomacy mission ever," says Pattiz. "We don't dispute that young people are listening for the music, but we're also getting our message out there."

People in the Middle East are not only listening to Radio Sawa, they're providing feedback. And that's exactly what MERN was hoping for. Thousands of e-mails have poured in: "Radiosawa is the greatest thing that ever happened to me since I don't know when…" Other feedback is more critical, says Pattiz, who recalls reading something along the lines of: "Beware Sawa. They call martyrs suicide bombers." Parents in the region are even concerned that the U.S. is "corrupting the youth" — one father mentioned to a Sawa employee that his ten-year-old son had asked him about the war on terror. Overseas newspapers are reporting on SAWA, too. "To many, [Radio Sawa] is a propaganda arm that wants to alter Arab peoples' opinions of the U.S. and its policies in the region," reads an editorial from The Jordan Times. "The congressmen want to rush with their scheme of expanding American influence in the Arab world," reads an article in Saudi Arabia's Arab News. "They are annoyed because their previous attempts to break the 'coarse' Arabs did not bear fruit."

But as Robert Reilly, VOA's director, told NRO: "Radio Sawa is an extraordinary endeavor, an absolutely essential tool in the war against international terrorism." Indeed, VOA's own newsroom, which produces stories for VOA services in all languages, has stepped up its efforts in Afghanistan — where, joined by Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, it broadcasts 24 hours a day. It has also expanded airtime in many other countries in the region, including Iran, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan. "Look around the axis of evil," says Reilly, "and you will see that the war of ideas is very much on our mind."

— Melissa Seckora is an NR editorial associate.