By Sam Hilmy
According to its founders, Radio Sawa was designed to report the news 'straight up' so listeners could 'decide for themselves'.
May, 2007. In April 2002, the U.S. Government launched an audacious
new Arabic language radio station aimed at the countries of the Middle
East and North Africa. The round-the-clock broadcasts, oddly dubbed
Radio Sawa, replaced at a single stroke the respected brand name of
the Voice of America's Arabic Service, which had for over a half
century, in war and peace, provided the region with comprehensive full
service programming.
A predominantly pop music service designed to appeal to youth, Sawa
was established at the behest of American commercial media mogul
Norman Pattiz who, until his resignation at the end of 2006, was a
member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an
independent U.S. federal agency. The BBG oversees all non-military
U.S. Government-funded broadcast outlets. To run the new station, the
BBG under Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson (a former chairman of the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, editor of Reader's Digest and
director of the VOA who also recently abandoned his government
position under a cloud of criticism for mismanagement) founded and
funded the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), a non-profit
corporation. MBN also operates Sawa's younger twin Arabic TV
satellite channel Alhurra.
Mr. Tomlinson has publicly described his friend and colleague Mr.
Pattiz as "the father of Radio Sawa." After the station was launched,
Mr. Pattiz described it in a public forum in ecstatic terms: "It sounded
so different and it was so appealing-because it really sounds like a
Western contemporary music station, a pop station."
Sawa's Mission
Like any successful big-time business executive, Mr. Pattiz
commissioned a survey and "a lot of advance research" before
embarking on the costly, large-scale project of a 24/7 Arabic language
radio station. The Middle East survey results, according to him,
showed three things: (a) "over 60 percent of the population ... is under
the age of 30," (b) "the indigenous media, especially radio ... everything
was pretty dull and pretty drab, and it sounded like government radio,"
and (c) "people were interested in something that didn't sound like
government radio." Mr. Pattiz decided that this was what businessmen
call "the hole in the marketplace." In order to fill this "hole" with his
product, Radio Sawa, he needed ample sources of cash and the most
modern broadcast facilities to reach the audience with a clear signal.
The new station cost the American taxpayer $34 million in its first year.
He secured clear FM transmission to most Arab countries and a
powerful medium wave to the rest. The VOA's Arabic Service cost the
U.S. Government less than $5 million annually and transmitted its
programs on a limited medium wave and a few short waves at the time
it was replaced by Sawa.
Mr. Pattiz described his new station's mission as "... reporting the news
straight up and letting the listeners ...decide for themselves." He said
that in addition to Sawa's journalistic mission, it aspires to be "an
example of a free press in the American tradition." He added: "We
generally play an Arabic pop song followed by a Western pop song.
And then we'll have news, five to ten minutes in length, twice an hour,
with headlines at the top and bottom of the hour."
Program Components[1]
Sawa's constant on-air slogan boasts about "the loveliest tunes and the
latest news." It never identifies itself as an American station or where it
broadcasts from. Its round-the-clock airtime is divided into roughly 20
percent news and 80 percent pop music. Everything the listener hears
other than the music is called The World Now. This rubric
encompasses the presentation of hard news, light news, bromide and
topical features and interviews, sports and so forth. The only exception
is a daily 30-minute news program called Iraq and the World, half of
which is rerun an hour later. No news-related material ever interrupts,
or is incorporated within, the music portion-no matter how urgent the
breaking news. Sawa does not carry discrete, identifiable "programs"
with distinct titles, individual star talent and performers, music themes
and thematic focus. No news "bulletins" are heard alerting listeners to
momentous world events.
Unlike its plethora of field reporters and stringers, the station's studio
readers, anchor persons and host announcers are never identified by
name. This anonymity applies to the readers of widely scattered
promos outside the news portions, plugging for Sawa, its website and
(since February 2004) its sister TV channel Alhurra.
News Content
Contrary to Mr. Pattiz's claim, Sawa never carries heads at the top and
bottom of the hour. It provides news only twice every hour, usually five
minutes every quarter after the hour and a minute or two of headlines
every quarter before the hour. The five-minute segments are variously
called "newscast" or "full newscast" or "detailed newscast." The
headlines are always presented as "summary." The full-length news
may occasionally run up to 10, 15 or even 30 minutes, as in the
exceptional case of the daily "Iraq and the World." Therefore, I would
estimate that the station provides between 7 and 17 minutes of world
news per hour. A fair and generous average would then be 10 minutes
per hour, which brings the total news time in a 24-hour cycle to 240
minutes. This is less than half the 600-minute daily claim made by
Sawa officials in media interviews.
A Radio Sawa presenter is put through his paces.
confusing problem for listeners: the first headline may not necessarily
be a reference to the first item in the body of the newscast, or an
opening head is interrogatively formulated in a misleading and
tabloidish style that does not accurately or fully reflect the substance of
the news item itself. Another news-related inconsistency has to do with
repeating the main headlines or the lead head at the conclusion of
newscasts, and how to close a news program. Sawa's newsreaders
seem to follow their own whims in this regard. In fact, some readers do
not even close before the studio engineer plays the usual taped lead-
out, "We relay the event to you in sound so you can form a complete
picture." The headline news always ends with a prerecorded
exhortation: "Stay in touch with the world-(through) The World Now."
At times even these lead-outs are skipped before moving on to the pop
songs.
A more serious problem that plagues Sawa's news handling goes to the
core of evaluating priorities and exercising professional judgment
regarding the relative significance of world events. Most and
sometimes all news stories in one newscast are jettisoned in favor of
another set of items in the next news presentation an hour later. This is
done with shocking disregard for news value or breaking news. Rarely
does a listener hear major stories repeated from hour to hour after
proper updating or rewriting to freshen up the next program. Such a
cavalier approach to news material distorts the overall picture of world
happenings for the vast majority of listeners who normally zero in on
specific time slots instead of staying glued to a station all day. Sawa's
practice also reflects ignorance of what should constitute a day's major
news leads. There are always major news developments that require
coverage in more than just one newscast.
Although on rare occasions a listener would hear a flawless,
impeccable, rich and seamless newscast with a perfect lineup, ample
voice actualities and anchor confidence, the more prevalent practice
gives listeners a messy picture of thematic and topical chaos. Related
items on one event can be separated by several unrelated items. Big
news developments on tragic events can be used as closers and,
conversely, a light routine item or a local insignificant item may be given
a prominent place in a newscast. Almost any news development can
be used by Sawa as a lead. On a day full of important news, Sawa
leads one newscast with a Jordanian government announcement that
Amman has not decided whether to resume commercial flights to
Baghdad. The lead story of another newscast quotes the London Daily
The Independent as saying that the Bush administration had advance
knowledge of the 9/11 attack, but no official American response is
provided to give the story balance and context. An hour later the
station drops the item altogether.
Covering Iraq
Let's now turn our attention to a major news story of global significance
that has preoccupied the world media for more than four years-the
invasion and occupation of Iraq-and track Sawa's treatment of it.
When American and British forces launched their air and ground
offensives in the spring of 2003, practically the whole world was calling
this pre-emptive military action an "invasion" of a sovereign nation. Yet
the word "invasion" disappeared from Sawa's lexicon. When Baghdad
fell and the US-led coalition settled down to run the country, the entire
world (including the United Nations, the media and even the Bush
administration) admitted it was an "occupation". Yet Sawa's broadcasts
avoided the word "occupation" like the plague and rarely referred to
Iraqi civilian victims of air raids and other military operations. When
anarchy, lawlessness and looting engulfed Iraq after the regime
change, the American station continued to beam its customary pop
songs and perfunctory news that lacked in-depth coverage and
responsible discussion. The looting and devastation prompted Dr.
Robert Darnton, professor of European history at Princeton University,
to tell The Washington Post: "As many have remarked, the Mongol
invasion of A.D. 1258 resulted in less damage to Iraqi civilization than
the American invasion of 2003." Sawa's news coverage, however, had
no time for such views of events.
A few months into the occupation, America's first head of the postwar
mission in Iraq, retired general Jay Garner was unceremoniously
replaced with Ambassador Paul Bremer. The new top administrator
quickly started running the vanquished country by decree: he
disbanded the Iraqi army, banned the Baath party and fired all its
members from government jobs, closed down most of the country's
industries, and appointed his favorite Iraqis to the new Governing
Council. These momentous developments and their dire
consequences for both occupier and occupied received scant,
superficial treatment from Sawa. The station was busy focusing on
President Bush's rosy predictions and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's
unreal statements that "stuff happens" and America "will not impose a
government on Iraq." In the meantime, former U.N. Secretary General
Kofi Annan's special envoy to Baghdad Lakhdar Brahimi publicly
described Bremer as the new "dictator of Iraq... Nothing happens
without his agreement." But Sawa was telling its listeners about the
great help Brahimi was giving "the Coalition" to prepare Iraq for a
democratic future. And the station's field reporters initially maintained
complete silence about the torture and shocking abuses inside Abu
Ghraib prison of which Iraqis were already aware (through word of
mouth and complaints by international human rights organizations) long
before the American TV program 60 Minutes broke the news.
Eventually, as the situation in Iraq deteriorated, Radio Sawa expanded
its coverage with the inauguration of a 30-minute daily program called
Iraq and the World at 10:15 PM Baghdad time, and a 15-minute version
an hour later. This news and opinion roundup does neither Iraq nor the
United States a favor, and should perhaps be called Iraq and Iraq,
because the rest of the world is non-existent in it-except for a fleeting
and parochial reference. It also suffers from the same shortcomings of
all Sawa news programs. Quality control is very poor. The program
airs dozens of voiced news pieces and long interviews from field
reporters around the country without evaluating, auditing, double-
checking and editing them in advance. The results: poor or
contradictory sourcing, outdated information, unprofessional language
and duplicated material. The show also suffers from lack of
preplanning and a chaotic format, allowing airtime to become a platform
for emotional, unrestrained views. Any major news story that is not
Iraq-related is either completely ignored or marginalized. A good
example is hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans and the
Gulf coast of the U.S. in 2005. Even the Israel-Lebanese Hizbullah war
in the summer of 2006 received only inadequate and indirect mention
with no reportage about the intense fighting or world reaction.
Sound and Music
Sawa uses an impressive number of voices on the air, both male and
female, as studio talent and field reporters. The professional quality of
their delivery and their mastery of broadcast language, however, are
very uneven, ranging from the highly effective and convincing to the
very poor, from the smooth and natural to the awkward and halting,
from the authoritative and pleasant to the pompous and pretentious.
The impact of these voices on and receptivity by the listeners,
therefore, vary widely and depend to a large extent on matching each to
the reading assignment he or she is given. Aside from field reporters,
performers are kept anonymous and the gifted stars among them are
not optimally utilized as a tool to build up faithful fans of specific
program features.
Music is used thematically by Sawa to identify the news. The theme for
newscasts is satisfactory and utilitarian but somewhat pedestrian and,
after a few weeks of listening, becomes tiresome to the ear. The
theme for the summaries is annoying, distracting and overdramatic. It
is held for the length of the summary and the level is brought up
deafeningly between individual headlines. Some music stingers[2] are
also used in a post-modern video game digital-age fashion to
accompany echo chamber promos or sloganeering catch phrases. The
latter include such things as, "You listen to us, we listen to you," or,
"From the ocean to the gulf, we are Sawa (i.e., together)." At times the
station mentions its website or a telephone number or a few sound
bites from listeners in praise of Sawa or expressing opinions on some
innocuous or provocative subject.
There is minimal use of the sophisticated craft of radio production to
enhance program impact. Rarely does a listener feel truly moved by a
smooth forward flow of broadcast material. Nor does one always feel
comfortable with the timing and placement of recorded inserts and
promos. The station seems to have difficulty matching style to
substance, harmonizing sound with words, utilizing a production device
to enhance the effect of a program on a target audience living in non-
Anglo-Saxon cultural environment.
Pop Songs
This is a programming area that consumes about 80 percent of Sawa's
airtime. It should logically deserve a commensurate level of attention,
talent and resources. Yet after listening to endless hours of alternating
Arabic and so-called "Western" pop songs, and trying to deduce some
coherent, professional whole, we discover what a neglected, drifting
wasteland all this airtime is. Some egregious weaknesses are: The
music portions have no detectable character, personality or identity.
The hourly segmentations cannot even be properly described as
"programs" because they lack beginning and end that define the nature
and flavor of the contents. Nobody is in charge, and there is no star
quality talent who might act as a guide to the listeners through the
various component parts. Almost none of the artists and songs are
identified. No informative narrative is ever provided to enlighten us
about the types of songs played, the dates of issuance, the extent of
their popularity and other distinguishing facts. Talk interruptions come
without artful, smooth transition flow or thematic unity. In the transition
from one song to the next, there is more often than not a definite jarring
clash in rhythm, melody, tone, lyrical connotation, voice quality and
vocal range. Clocking groups of songs in any music period seems to
receive little attention from producers and programmers. As a result,
when time comes for The World Now and the last song has to be faded
for the news introduction cartridge, the ending is frequently mishandled
by cutting off in the middle of unfinished lyrics.
Illusion and Reality
The founders of Sawa were convinced from the outset that, in order for
their new broadcasting project to accomplish a successful reach to
Arab audiences by "marrying the mission to the market," they needed to
separate the station from the Voice of America. The latter's mandate
was too strict and broad for them. The VOA was required to adhere to
its Charter, enacted into law decades earlier, whose operative
paragraphs are:
(1) VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of
news. VOA news will be accurate, objective and comprehensive.
(2) VOA will represent America, not any single segment of American
society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive
projection of American thought and institutions.
(3) VOA will present the policies of the United States clearly and
effectively, and will also present responsible discussion and opinions on
those policies.
To be sure, Sawa officials continued in their promotional material to pay
lip service to their commitment "to broadcasting accurate, timely and
relevant news about the Middle East, the world and the United States,
to the highest standards of journalism, as well as the free marketplace
of ideas, respect for the intelligence and culture of its audiences, and a
style that is upbeat, modern and forward-looking." But their real
objective was to attract the Arab World's "youthful population" with pop
songs and keep them tuned to the station. In terms of current affairs
content, Sawa has never attempted to focus adequately on anything but
parochial backyard Arab news which marginalizes major American and
world developments.
Pop is a major successful commercial enterprise that targets a wide
youthful common denominator, but it alone cannot present the picture
of America which American public diplomacy is intended to present-that
of a country with rich, multifaceted culture, revolutionary ideals,
commercial vitality, history-making values of human rights and social
justice, and standards of transparent government. Nor is pop music
what young Arab needs today to form a more enlightened view of their
societies and the world, or to build a more participatory society firmly
rooted in human values. Pop does not attract potential future leaders
or opinion makers. It does not build credibility.
News of the non-Arab world almost always plays second fiddle on
Sawa's airtime. The station has literally scores of news reporters in
Arab capitals, especially in Iraq, but only one part-time reporter in the
United States who provides reportage from the State Department or at
times from The White House (but never from Congress). Sure, Arab
news is of utmost importance and a big draw, and must be accorded
prominent play. However, significant events (economic, cultural,
scientific as well as political) always take place in America and
elsewhere in the world, and they must be covered.
The true nature of Radio Sawa's broadcast content and performance
remains a mystery to the legislative and executive branches of
government in Washington, because the station continues to resist any
outside, independent review and probe of its programs. The station
also refuses to accept the critical findings already reached by such
investigative agencies as the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
and the State Department Inspector General's office.
"The father of Radio Sawa," Mr. Norman Pattiz, years ago came to the
conclusion that Arab hostility and dislike of America were caused by, in
his words, "hate speak on radio and television. Incitement to violence.
Disinformation, government censorship and journalistic self-censorship.
And it was from within that kind of environment that the Arab street was
getting its impressions, not only of U.S. policy, but of our people, of our
culture, of our society." And he was going to set things right with his
grand new broadcasting adventure.
Five years after a steady diet of Sawa pabulum, U.S. prestige and
standing in the Arab World are at record low, and its image uglier than
ever. Official U.S. poll results show that in Iraq, for example, 70
percent want the U.S. to withdraw from that country, and no less than
60 percent approve of killing Americans.
This is perhaps the best testimony to the abject failure of Mr. Pattiz's
grand design.
Sam Hilmy is a veteran Middle East broadcasting Specialist and long-
time observer of Arab-American affairs. He was for almost 35 years
associated with the Voice of America (VOA) in various language,
editorial and managerial capacities. He spent his last five years with
the organization as director of the Near East, North Africa and South
Asia Division.
(Source: Zacharias Liangas/Cumbre DX)
According to its founders, Radio Sawa was designed to report the news 'straight up' so listeners could 'decide for themselves'.
May, 2007. In April 2002, the U.S. Government launched an audacious
new Arabic language radio station aimed at the countries of the Middle
East and North Africa. The round-the-clock broadcasts, oddly dubbed
Radio Sawa, replaced at a single stroke the respected brand name of
the Voice of America's Arabic Service, which had for over a half
century, in war and peace, provided the region with comprehensive full
service programming.
A predominantly pop music service designed to appeal to youth, Sawa
was established at the behest of American commercial media mogul
Norman Pattiz who, until his resignation at the end of 2006, was a
member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an
independent U.S. federal agency. The BBG oversees all non-military
U.S. Government-funded broadcast outlets. To run the new station, the
BBG under Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson (a former chairman of the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, editor of Reader's Digest and
director of the VOA who also recently abandoned his government
position under a cloud of criticism for mismanagement) founded and
funded the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), a non-profit
corporation. MBN also operates Sawa's younger twin Arabic TV
satellite channel Alhurra.
Mr. Tomlinson has publicly described his friend and colleague Mr.
Pattiz as "the father of Radio Sawa." After the station was launched,
Mr. Pattiz described it in a public forum in ecstatic terms: "It sounded
so different and it was so appealing-because it really sounds like a
Western contemporary music station, a pop station."
Sawa's Mission
Like any successful big-time business executive, Mr. Pattiz
commissioned a survey and "a lot of advance research" before
embarking on the costly, large-scale project of a 24/7 Arabic language
radio station. The Middle East survey results, according to him,
showed three things: (a) "over 60 percent of the population ... is under
the age of 30," (b) "the indigenous media, especially radio ... everything
was pretty dull and pretty drab, and it sounded like government radio,"
and (c) "people were interested in something that didn't sound like
government radio." Mr. Pattiz decided that this was what businessmen
call "the hole in the marketplace." In order to fill this "hole" with his
product, Radio Sawa, he needed ample sources of cash and the most
modern broadcast facilities to reach the audience with a clear signal.
The new station cost the American taxpayer $34 million in its first year.
He secured clear FM transmission to most Arab countries and a
powerful medium wave to the rest. The VOA's Arabic Service cost the
U.S. Government less than $5 million annually and transmitted its
programs on a limited medium wave and a few short waves at the time
it was replaced by Sawa.
Mr. Pattiz described his new station's mission as "... reporting the news
straight up and letting the listeners ...decide for themselves." He said
that in addition to Sawa's journalistic mission, it aspires to be "an
example of a free press in the American tradition." He added: "We
generally play an Arabic pop song followed by a Western pop song.
And then we'll have news, five to ten minutes in length, twice an hour,
with headlines at the top and bottom of the hour."
Program Components[1]
Sawa's constant on-air slogan boasts about "the loveliest tunes and the
latest news." It never identifies itself as an American station or where it
broadcasts from. Its round-the-clock airtime is divided into roughly 20
percent news and 80 percent pop music. Everything the listener hears
other than the music is called The World Now. This rubric
encompasses the presentation of hard news, light news, bromide and
topical features and interviews, sports and so forth. The only exception
is a daily 30-minute news program called Iraq and the World, half of
which is rerun an hour later. No news-related material ever interrupts,
or is incorporated within, the music portion-no matter how urgent the
breaking news. Sawa does not carry discrete, identifiable "programs"
with distinct titles, individual star talent and performers, music themes
and thematic focus. No news "bulletins" are heard alerting listeners to
momentous world events.
Unlike its plethora of field reporters and stringers, the station's studio
readers, anchor persons and host announcers are never identified by
name. This anonymity applies to the readers of widely scattered
promos outside the news portions, plugging for Sawa, its website and
(since February 2004) its sister TV channel Alhurra.
News Content
Contrary to Mr. Pattiz's claim, Sawa never carries heads at the top and
bottom of the hour. It provides news only twice every hour, usually five
minutes every quarter after the hour and a minute or two of headlines
every quarter before the hour. The five-minute segments are variously
called "newscast" or "full newscast" or "detailed newscast." The
headlines are always presented as "summary." The full-length news
may occasionally run up to 10, 15 or even 30 minutes, as in the
exceptional case of the daily "Iraq and the World." Therefore, I would
estimate that the station provides between 7 and 17 minutes of world
news per hour. A fair and generous average would then be 10 minutes
per hour, which brings the total news time in a 24-hour cycle to 240
minutes. This is less than half the 600-minute daily claim made by
Sawa officials in media interviews.
A Radio Sawa presenter is put through his paces.
confusing problem for listeners: the first headline may not necessarily
be a reference to the first item in the body of the newscast, or an
opening head is interrogatively formulated in a misleading and
tabloidish style that does not accurately or fully reflect the substance of
the news item itself. Another news-related inconsistency has to do with
repeating the main headlines or the lead head at the conclusion of
newscasts, and how to close a news program. Sawa's newsreaders
seem to follow their own whims in this regard. In fact, some readers do
not even close before the studio engineer plays the usual taped lead-
out, "We relay the event to you in sound so you can form a complete
picture." The headline news always ends with a prerecorded
exhortation: "Stay in touch with the world-(through) The World Now."
At times even these lead-outs are skipped before moving on to the pop
songs.
A more serious problem that plagues Sawa's news handling goes to the
core of evaluating priorities and exercising professional judgment
regarding the relative significance of world events. Most and
sometimes all news stories in one newscast are jettisoned in favor of
another set of items in the next news presentation an hour later. This is
done with shocking disregard for news value or breaking news. Rarely
does a listener hear major stories repeated from hour to hour after
proper updating or rewriting to freshen up the next program. Such a
cavalier approach to news material distorts the overall picture of world
happenings for the vast majority of listeners who normally zero in on
specific time slots instead of staying glued to a station all day. Sawa's
practice also reflects ignorance of what should constitute a day's major
news leads. There are always major news developments that require
coverage in more than just one newscast.
Although on rare occasions a listener would hear a flawless,
impeccable, rich and seamless newscast with a perfect lineup, ample
voice actualities and anchor confidence, the more prevalent practice
gives listeners a messy picture of thematic and topical chaos. Related
items on one event can be separated by several unrelated items. Big
news developments on tragic events can be used as closers and,
conversely, a light routine item or a local insignificant item may be given
a prominent place in a newscast. Almost any news development can
be used by Sawa as a lead. On a day full of important news, Sawa
leads one newscast with a Jordanian government announcement that
Amman has not decided whether to resume commercial flights to
Baghdad. The lead story of another newscast quotes the London Daily
The Independent as saying that the Bush administration had advance
knowledge of the 9/11 attack, but no official American response is
provided to give the story balance and context. An hour later the
station drops the item altogether.
Covering Iraq
Let's now turn our attention to a major news story of global significance
that has preoccupied the world media for more than four years-the
invasion and occupation of Iraq-and track Sawa's treatment of it.
When American and British forces launched their air and ground
offensives in the spring of 2003, practically the whole world was calling
this pre-emptive military action an "invasion" of a sovereign nation. Yet
the word "invasion" disappeared from Sawa's lexicon. When Baghdad
fell and the US-led coalition settled down to run the country, the entire
world (including the United Nations, the media and even the Bush
administration) admitted it was an "occupation". Yet Sawa's broadcasts
avoided the word "occupation" like the plague and rarely referred to
Iraqi civilian victims of air raids and other military operations. When
anarchy, lawlessness and looting engulfed Iraq after the regime
change, the American station continued to beam its customary pop
songs and perfunctory news that lacked in-depth coverage and
responsible discussion. The looting and devastation prompted Dr.
Robert Darnton, professor of European history at Princeton University,
to tell The Washington Post: "As many have remarked, the Mongol
invasion of A.D. 1258 resulted in less damage to Iraqi civilization than
the American invasion of 2003." Sawa's news coverage, however, had
no time for such views of events.
A few months into the occupation, America's first head of the postwar
mission in Iraq, retired general Jay Garner was unceremoniously
replaced with Ambassador Paul Bremer. The new top administrator
quickly started running the vanquished country by decree: he
disbanded the Iraqi army, banned the Baath party and fired all its
members from government jobs, closed down most of the country's
industries, and appointed his favorite Iraqis to the new Governing
Council. These momentous developments and their dire
consequences for both occupier and occupied received scant,
superficial treatment from Sawa. The station was busy focusing on
President Bush's rosy predictions and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's
unreal statements that "stuff happens" and America "will not impose a
government on Iraq." In the meantime, former U.N. Secretary General
Kofi Annan's special envoy to Baghdad Lakhdar Brahimi publicly
described Bremer as the new "dictator of Iraq... Nothing happens
without his agreement." But Sawa was telling its listeners about the
great help Brahimi was giving "the Coalition" to prepare Iraq for a
democratic future. And the station's field reporters initially maintained
complete silence about the torture and shocking abuses inside Abu
Ghraib prison of which Iraqis were already aware (through word of
mouth and complaints by international human rights organizations) long
before the American TV program 60 Minutes broke the news.
Eventually, as the situation in Iraq deteriorated, Radio Sawa expanded
its coverage with the inauguration of a 30-minute daily program called
Iraq and the World at 10:15 PM Baghdad time, and a 15-minute version
an hour later. This news and opinion roundup does neither Iraq nor the
United States a favor, and should perhaps be called Iraq and Iraq,
because the rest of the world is non-existent in it-except for a fleeting
and parochial reference. It also suffers from the same shortcomings of
all Sawa news programs. Quality control is very poor. The program
airs dozens of voiced news pieces and long interviews from field
reporters around the country without evaluating, auditing, double-
checking and editing them in advance. The results: poor or
contradictory sourcing, outdated information, unprofessional language
and duplicated material. The show also suffers from lack of
preplanning and a chaotic format, allowing airtime to become a platform
for emotional, unrestrained views. Any major news story that is not
Iraq-related is either completely ignored or marginalized. A good
example is hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans and the
Gulf coast of the U.S. in 2005. Even the Israel-Lebanese Hizbullah war
in the summer of 2006 received only inadequate and indirect mention
with no reportage about the intense fighting or world reaction.
Sound and Music
Sawa uses an impressive number of voices on the air, both male and
female, as studio talent and field reporters. The professional quality of
their delivery and their mastery of broadcast language, however, are
very uneven, ranging from the highly effective and convincing to the
very poor, from the smooth and natural to the awkward and halting,
from the authoritative and pleasant to the pompous and pretentious.
The impact of these voices on and receptivity by the listeners,
therefore, vary widely and depend to a large extent on matching each to
the reading assignment he or she is given. Aside from field reporters,
performers are kept anonymous and the gifted stars among them are
not optimally utilized as a tool to build up faithful fans of specific
program features.
Music is used thematically by Sawa to identify the news. The theme for
newscasts is satisfactory and utilitarian but somewhat pedestrian and,
after a few weeks of listening, becomes tiresome to the ear. The
theme for the summaries is annoying, distracting and overdramatic. It
is held for the length of the summary and the level is brought up
deafeningly between individual headlines. Some music stingers[2] are
also used in a post-modern video game digital-age fashion to
accompany echo chamber promos or sloganeering catch phrases. The
latter include such things as, "You listen to us, we listen to you," or,
"From the ocean to the gulf, we are Sawa (i.e., together)." At times the
station mentions its website or a telephone number or a few sound
bites from listeners in praise of Sawa or expressing opinions on some
innocuous or provocative subject.
There is minimal use of the sophisticated craft of radio production to
enhance program impact. Rarely does a listener feel truly moved by a
smooth forward flow of broadcast material. Nor does one always feel
comfortable with the timing and placement of recorded inserts and
promos. The station seems to have difficulty matching style to
substance, harmonizing sound with words, utilizing a production device
to enhance the effect of a program on a target audience living in non-
Anglo-Saxon cultural environment.
Pop Songs
This is a programming area that consumes about 80 percent of Sawa's
airtime. It should logically deserve a commensurate level of attention,
talent and resources. Yet after listening to endless hours of alternating
Arabic and so-called "Western" pop songs, and trying to deduce some
coherent, professional whole, we discover what a neglected, drifting
wasteland all this airtime is. Some egregious weaknesses are: The
music portions have no detectable character, personality or identity.
The hourly segmentations cannot even be properly described as
"programs" because they lack beginning and end that define the nature
and flavor of the contents. Nobody is in charge, and there is no star
quality talent who might act as a guide to the listeners through the
various component parts. Almost none of the artists and songs are
identified. No informative narrative is ever provided to enlighten us
about the types of songs played, the dates of issuance, the extent of
their popularity and other distinguishing facts. Talk interruptions come
without artful, smooth transition flow or thematic unity. In the transition
from one song to the next, there is more often than not a definite jarring
clash in rhythm, melody, tone, lyrical connotation, voice quality and
vocal range. Clocking groups of songs in any music period seems to
receive little attention from producers and programmers. As a result,
when time comes for The World Now and the last song has to be faded
for the news introduction cartridge, the ending is frequently mishandled
by cutting off in the middle of unfinished lyrics.
Illusion and Reality
The founders of Sawa were convinced from the outset that, in order for
their new broadcasting project to accomplish a successful reach to
Arab audiences by "marrying the mission to the market," they needed to
separate the station from the Voice of America. The latter's mandate
was too strict and broad for them. The VOA was required to adhere to
its Charter, enacted into law decades earlier, whose operative
paragraphs are:
(1) VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of
news. VOA news will be accurate, objective and comprehensive.
(2) VOA will represent America, not any single segment of American
society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive
projection of American thought and institutions.
(3) VOA will present the policies of the United States clearly and
effectively, and will also present responsible discussion and opinions on
those policies.
To be sure, Sawa officials continued in their promotional material to pay
lip service to their commitment "to broadcasting accurate, timely and
relevant news about the Middle East, the world and the United States,
to the highest standards of journalism, as well as the free marketplace
of ideas, respect for the intelligence and culture of its audiences, and a
style that is upbeat, modern and forward-looking." But their real
objective was to attract the Arab World's "youthful population" with pop
songs and keep them tuned to the station. In terms of current affairs
content, Sawa has never attempted to focus adequately on anything but
parochial backyard Arab news which marginalizes major American and
world developments.
Pop is a major successful commercial enterprise that targets a wide
youthful common denominator, but it alone cannot present the picture
of America which American public diplomacy is intended to present-that
of a country with rich, multifaceted culture, revolutionary ideals,
commercial vitality, history-making values of human rights and social
justice, and standards of transparent government. Nor is pop music
what young Arab needs today to form a more enlightened view of their
societies and the world, or to build a more participatory society firmly
rooted in human values. Pop does not attract potential future leaders
or opinion makers. It does not build credibility.
News of the non-Arab world almost always plays second fiddle on
Sawa's airtime. The station has literally scores of news reporters in
Arab capitals, especially in Iraq, but only one part-time reporter in the
United States who provides reportage from the State Department or at
times from The White House (but never from Congress). Sure, Arab
news is of utmost importance and a big draw, and must be accorded
prominent play. However, significant events (economic, cultural,
scientific as well as political) always take place in America and
elsewhere in the world, and they must be covered.
The true nature of Radio Sawa's broadcast content and performance
remains a mystery to the legislative and executive branches of
government in Washington, because the station continues to resist any
outside, independent review and probe of its programs. The station
also refuses to accept the critical findings already reached by such
investigative agencies as the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
and the State Department Inspector General's office.
"The father of Radio Sawa," Mr. Norman Pattiz, years ago came to the
conclusion that Arab hostility and dislike of America were caused by, in
his words, "hate speak on radio and television. Incitement to violence.
Disinformation, government censorship and journalistic self-censorship.
And it was from within that kind of environment that the Arab street was
getting its impressions, not only of U.S. policy, but of our people, of our
culture, of our society." And he was going to set things right with his
grand new broadcasting adventure.
Five years after a steady diet of Sawa pabulum, U.S. prestige and
standing in the Arab World are at record low, and its image uglier than
ever. Official U.S. poll results show that in Iraq, for example, 70
percent want the U.S. to withdraw from that country, and no less than
60 percent approve of killing Americans.
This is perhaps the best testimony to the abject failure of Mr. Pattiz's
grand design.
Sam Hilmy is a veteran Middle East broadcasting Specialist and long-
time observer of Arab-American affairs. He was for almost 35 years
associated with the Voice of America (VOA) in various language,
editorial and managerial capacities. He spent his last five years with
the organization as director of the Near East, North Africa and South
Asia Division.
(Source: Zacharias Liangas/Cumbre DX)
