Can we talk?  I’m not sure we can anymore — at least when it comes to telling our global rivals and allies and their citizens about America.  The latest sign that our government doesn’t care about telling America’s story to the world is the dismal performance of taxpayer-funded Al Hurra, the Arabic-language TV channel created to help the world’s 250 million Arabic speakers better understand America.

As Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post reports from Cairo, Al Hurra (which means "The Free One" in Arabic) has suffered from "mediocre programming, congressional interference and a succession of executives who either had little experience in television or could not speak Arabic."  The result is a 2% share of the viewing audience and viewers who much prefer Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. 

And the deeper reason for this failure? 

According to Whitlock, "Arab journalists and viewers say al-Hurra has a basic problem: It is boring. Investigative pieces are rare, and critics say the channel generally doesn’t make waves." 

One Syrian journalist Whitlock interviewed put it more bluntly, saying "Al-Hurra would have been the number one station in the Arab world had they done one-quarter of what they should have covered . . .  [p]eople say if it’s an American station, nobody will watch it. That’s crap. If it’s an American station that does a good job, everybody will watch it."

If you’re wondering why no one watches, try drilling down into the network’s website.  There’s no there there.

During the Cold War, the United States Information Agency oversaw the Voice of America and a host of radio services broadcast all over the world.  It published magazines such as America that were translated into Russian and distributed (if unevenly) across the Soviet Union.  Based on bilateral agreements with the USSR, USIA organized cultural exhibitions that toured the Soviet Union and allowed average Soviet citizens to see and talk to real live Americans.  American radio programs were listened to by millions of Soviet citizens every day — and by listening to our music, our national and local news, sports, and opinion, they developed a more nuanced opinion of the U.S.  But with cutbacks to the VOA and other services and — most importantly — a lack of imagination, we are losing viewers and listeners around the world. 

Propaganda is not a dirty word.  It’s spreading your message.  Ours is worth telling, if we tell the truth.  If we show veterans returning from the war, if we show households coping with the high price of fuel, if we talk about the problems of our schools and our cities, foreign viewers will respect our country more, not less.  After all, one of America’s strengths lies in how we overcome our weaknesses. 

If America has a story worth telling, our government must be sure it gets told in the most compelling way possible.  One partial solution is readily available: have the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which now oversees VOA, Al Hurra and other broadcasters, partner with PBS, Discovery, the History Channel, National Geographic, HBO, the Sundance Channel and every other major producer of television documentaries.  These networks and their documentary producers use the public’s airwaves and benefit from government grants.  They should be obliged to make their material available (with a sufficient grace period) to Al-Hurra and other USG-sponsored channels at a significant discount or for free.   Hard-hitting documentaries, translated with subtitles, would be the easiest way to show American democracy at work.  And they would help get us above the statistical margin of error in the Arab world’s Nielsen ratings.

Ned Hodgman

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