U.S.-Funded Station Lacks Influence, Report Indicates
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 13, 2004; Page A12

Radio Sawa, an Arab-language pop music and news station funded by the U.S.
government and touted by the Bush administration as a success in reaching
out to the Arab world, has failed to meet its mandate of promoting democracy
and pro-American attitudes, according to a draft report prepared by the
State Department's inspector general.

The report credited Radio Sawa with attracting a large audience in key
Middle East countries but said the station, which has an annual budget of
$22 million, has been so preoccupied with building an audience through its
music that it has failed to adequately measure whether it is influencing
minds.

The report also questioned the validity of some research given to Congress
by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, Radio Sawa's parent, to demonstrate
its success.

Two independent panels of Arab-language experts hired by the inspector
general's office gave the programming a mixed review, saying it did not
match al-Jazeera in terms of quality and that parents would prefer that
their teenagers not listen to Radio Sawa because its broadcasts contained
such poor Arabic grammar. "Radio Sawa failed to present America to its
audience," one panel concluded.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors has vehemently protested the report,
questioning its methodology and assumptions in a 49-page pre-publication
rebuttal. The report, based on extensive interviews in Washington and the
Middle East with U.S. officials and public diplomacy experts, was scheduled
to be published in August, but publication has been repeatedly delayed.

The draft report notes that Broadcasting Board officials often interfered
with interviews and may have intimidated some employees and "made them less
forthcoming." A copy of the draft report was supplied by a source who said
he feared that the inspector general's office was buckling under pressure
and would water down the conclusions.

Cameron R. Hume, who became acting inspector general after the draft was
completed, confirmed the report was being revised. He acknowledged that the
Broadcasting Board has complained, but he noted he had his own concerns,
saying the report was based on "an erroneous view" of the legislation
involving Radio Sawa. He declined to comment further.

Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, said
there had been a "big dust-up" over the report. He said Radio Sawa is "one
of the biggest successes the U.S. has ever had in international
broadcasting" but that "critics of Sawa made an inordinate contribution" to
what he called a "fatally flawed report."

Sawa replaced the Arab-language version of the Voice of America, and
Tomlinson said, "VOA unions are obsessed over knocking Sawa."

Norman J. Pattiz, a board member regarded as the driving force behind Radio
Sawa, said that "there are many inaccuracies, misunderstandings and
misinformation in the draft that need to be corrected." He said the report
failed to comply with generally accepted government auditing standards,
misrepresents Sawa's mission and performance, and misinterprets federal and
congressional requirements.

The draft report said news and information programs represent only 25
percent of Radio Sawa's broadcast, and there appears to be a reluctance
among officials to use it as a tool for public diplomacy. The report said
Radio Sawa has not fully met the requirements of the VOA charter to present
the policies of the United States "clearly and effectively" and to present
"responsible discussions and opinion on these policies."

In a statement, the Broadcasting Board said that Radio Sawa is not
preoccupied with music, as the report charges, but offers more than 300
newscasts per week, and that more than 90 percent of the staff is devoted to
current affairs and informational programming. "The reason Radio Sawa plays
music is because research indicated a combination of music and news is the
best way to reach its target audience," the statement said.

The draft report said that while Radio Sawa has been promoted as a "heavily
researched broadcasting network," the research concentrated primarily on
gaining audience share, not on measuring whether Radio Sawa was influencing
its audience. Despite the larger audiences, "it is difficult to ascertain
Radio Sawa's impact in countering anti-American views and the biased
state-run media of the Arab world," the draft report said.

It said Radio Sawa has been reluctant to conduct post-broadcast analyses to
determine whether U.S. interests were advanced in its programming.
Moreover, it found there was a lack of uniform quality control at Radio
Sawa. Some current and former staffers complained that correspondents'
reports were uneven, with some reporters quoting "word for word" biased
articles that appeared in local newspapers and Middle East news services.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Oct12.html