Sent: Friday, July 01, 2005 4:22 PM
Subject: WINNING THE WAR OF IDEAS WITH POP MUSIC (SURE) - ROBERT SCHADLER

WINNING THE WAR OF IDEAS WITH POP MUSIC (SURE) - ROBERT SCHADLER, FORMER CHIEF
OF STAFF, U.S. INFORMATION AGENCY, WASHINGTON (LETTER TO THE EDITOR, WALL
STREET JOURNAL, JULY 1): "Your page-one article 'Propaganda: Sparking Debate,
Radio Czar Retools Government Media' (June 20) [PDPR, June 20] got nowhere near
the real crux of the controversy over Norman Pattiz's leadership in
transforming U.S. government broadcasting into pop music stations. It isn't a
matter of AM or FM frequencies, or of reforming a supposedly sclerotic
government agency, the VOA, or of his munificence to the Democratic Party. It
is about the conception of the mission of U.S. public diplomacy. Mr. Pattiz is
widely quoted as saying that 'MTV brought down the Berlin Wall' -- not
Solzhenitsyn, not John Paul II, not Vaclav Havel, not Lech Walesa, not Ronald
Reagan, not the ideas and ideals they represented. Based upon this curious
assumption, Mr. Pattiz eliminated the content from VOA's Arabic and Farsi
programming and replaced it with pop music nearly all the time. Is transforming
the war of ideas into the "battle of the bands" a winning strategy? Your
article points to the high listening rates Radio Sawa claims (and others
dispute) in countries like Morocco. But it neglects to mention that the
approval rating of the U.S. is at historic lows, with some key countries such
as Jordan and Egypt registering in single digits. There are surely other,
larger causes for this, but whether Radio Sawa is itself a source of
unfavorable views of the U.S. is more plausible than the contrary. In 1987, the
Hezbollah abductors of American journalist Charles Glass were listening to
Michael Jackson and Madonna during their depredations. Does Mr. Pattiz think
that Brittney Spears and Eminem, both staples of Radio Sawa, can succeed where
Madonna failed? We don't teach civics to American teenagers by asking them to
listen to pop music, so why we expect Arabs to learn about America or democracy
this way defies reason."

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This is ..... "the slightly larger version that was submitted with a good
sentence at the end that they cut out."

Best,

Bob Schadler

To the Editor:


Neil King?s story (WSJ 6/20) got nowhere near the real crux of the controversy
over Norman Pattiz?s leadership in transforming US government broadcasting into
pop music stations. It is not a matter of AM or FM frequencies, or of
reforming a supposedly sclerotic government agency, the VOA, or of his
munificence to the Democratic Party. It is about the conception of the mission
of US public diplomacy.

Mr. Pattiz is widely quoted as saying that ?MTV brought down the Berlin Wall? ?
not Solzhenitsyn, not John Paul II, not Vaclav Havel, not Lech Walesa, not
Ronald Reagan, not the ideas and ideals they represented. Based upon this
curious assumption, Pattiz eliminated the content from VOA's Arabic and Farsi
programming and replaced it with pop music (in Radio Sawa, 50 minutes of the
hour).

Is transforming the war of ideas into the "battle of the bands" a winning
strategy? Mr. King points to the high listening rates Radio Sawa claims (and
others dispute) in countries like Morocco but neglects to mention that during
the same period, the approval rating of the US is at historic lows with some
key countries such as Jordan and Egypt registering in single digits! There are
surely other, larger causes for this but whether Radio Sawa is itself a source
of unfavorable views of the U.S. is more plausible than the contrary.

No one disputes that music can help attract an audience, but can a close to
all-music format do anything more than that?

In 1987, the Hezbollah abductors of American journalist Charles Glass were
listening to Michael Jackson and Madonna during their depredations. Does
Pattiz think that Brittney Spears and Eminem, both staples of Radio Sawa, can
succeed where Madonna failed? We don't teach civics to American teenagers by
asking them to listen to pop music, so why we should expect Arabs to learn
about America or democracy this way defies reason.


Wars of ideas are won by ideas. In a war of ideas, performing a lobotomy on
your enemy might be a good move. But bragging about the expensive lobotomy you
performed on yourself is unheard of until now.