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."
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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 
