Al Hurra encyclopedia topics

Development

Alhura's "founding father" was Norman Joel Pattiz, at the time a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees the government’s nonmilitary international broadcasting services, including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia.

Funding

The budget for its first year was US$62 million, and $40 million more for an Iraq-specific station. $652 million has been requested for international broadcasting in 2006, which would include specific coverage for European Arabs. Dafna Linzer reports that "So far, U.S. taxpayers have spent nearly $500 million to fund these broadcasts."

Operations

This network is operated by a non-profit organization called The Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc., which in turn is funded by the BBG.

Alhurra has a staff of about 200 people, most of whom moved to the United States from Arab countries where many had worked for competing television channels.
Other related American-funded projects include the Arabic-language Radio Sawa.

Operations are based in the community of Springfield in Fairfax County, Virginia near Washington, D.C.

Linzer writes of the Alhurra staff: "Alhurra’s president, Brian Conniff, does not speak Arabic and is unable to understand anything broadcast on the radio and television networks he is paid to manage. Conniff has no journalism experience and worked previously as a government auditor. His news director, Daniel Nassif, grew up in Lebanon and has no background in television."

Content

Alhurra broadcasts 24 hours a day, and, similar to other BBG-owned properties, is commercial-free. In addition to shows the network produces itself, it has broadcast Arabic-subtitled versions of programs familiar to U.S. (and global) audiences, such as Frontline and Inside the Actors Studio. A dedicated version of the channel called Alhurra Iraq is broadcast on the Nilesat 101 satellite.

Formerly the top executives at Alhurra did not speak Arabic. In May 2007, ABC News reported that "That left decisions over al Hurra's content in the hands of its reporters and producers, who are, according to [Joaquin] Blaya, hastily-hired Arabic-speaking journalists with insufficient understanding of Western journalistic practices or the network's pro-Western mission."

Blaya, a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, was testifying in May 2007 before a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The hearing was prompted by revelations that, on several occasions, Alhurra had broadcast terrorist messages, including "a 68-minute call to arms against Israelis by a senior figure of the terrorist group Hezbollah; deferential coverage of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial conference; and a factually flawed piece on a splinter group of Orthodox Jews who oppose the state of Israel...." Blaya told the subcommittee that the problems were being addressed.

Alhurra has over the years hosted a number of prominent politicians, journalists and intellectuals in one-on-one long format interviews. Guests have included Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Francis Fukuyama, Palestinian President Dr. Salaam Fayyad, Ahmed Qurea, Silvan Shalom, Meier Shetrit, Tom Friedman, David Brooks, Mary Matalin, Jalal Talabani, Paul Volker, John Bolton, and President Bush.

Viewership and reception

As of 2005, polling data on Alhurra's viewership levels is somewhat contradictory. A BBG-commissioned, seven-country survey showed that 29 percent of the adult satellite-viewing audience had tuned in to Alhurra during one week in April 2005. However, a Zogby International survey done in June 2004 found that none of the surveyed Arabic audiences turned to Alhurra as a first choice for news, and only 3.8% picked it as a second choice. A poll of satellite users in the greater Cairo area found that over 64% felt Alhurra was not a trustworthy news source, while 86% and 67% considered al-Jazeera and CNN, respectively, to be trustworthy. (The apparent discrepancy may lie in the difference between Alhurra's success with entertainment-oriented programs and its relative failure in winning over regional viewers to its news programs.) Alhurra recently purchased a one-year package of 45 BBC Worldwide documentary and current affairs programs in an effort to boost ratings. Scholars at the Heritage Foundation have argued that Alhurra should be allowed to broadcast within the United States since private, non-US government Arab television news networks are permitted to broadcast there.