On the "Hearts 'n' Minds" front
For Many Iraqis, U.S.-Backed TV Echoes the Voice Of Its Sponsor
In gasoline lines stretching up to half a mile and coffeehouses darkened by power outages, the questions flow steadily:
When will there be enough electricity for hot water to shave?
Who's to blame for a fuel shortage in a country with some of the world's richest oil reserves?
Will it ever be safe enough to send our children to school?
Yet when the current president of Iraq's Governing Council, Adnan Pachachi, went on national television last weekend to face reporters, those were not the questions posed by the staff at the station, al-Iraqiya. They asked about the trip by an Iraqi delegation to the United Nations and plans to train some police outside the country.
Nine months after U.S. forces closed Iraq's state-run television stations and subsequently launched the new channel with promises of a democratic dawn for the country's news media, the Pentagon-sponsored station has not won the trust of many Iraqis. By seeking to cast the U.S. occupation in the most favorable light, al-Iraqiya may actually be losing the war for viewers' hearts and minds.
"Al-Iraqiya is failing," said Jaafar Saddiq, assistant dean at Baghdad's College of Media. "It's technically backward. Its message is not convincing. It can't compete with other stations."
Executives and journalists at al-Iraqiya say there are few taboos in their coverage and that they are free to address the everyday concerns of Iraqis. But many Iraqis say that those assertions have no more credibility than al-Iraqiya's nightly newscasts, which fuel the widespread conviction that al-Iraqiya is the mouthpiece for the U.S.-led military alliance and the U.S.-appointed Iraqi leadership.
"We're concerned about the difficulties of the people, about the promises that the coalition made that they haven't fulfilled. We don't see much about that," said Basseem Sattar, 31, a Baghdad taxi driver sipping sweet tea in a spartan cafe.
Mehdi Sawawi, 45, a retired government employee, put aside his newspaper and agreed. "Up until now, we're not sure who is running al-Iraqiya. Is the coalition or the Governing Council or somebody else?"
The station operates under the authority of the U.S. provisional administration in Iraq and has been managed by Science Applications International Corp., a California-based defense and technology contractor picked by the Pentagon to run Iraqi Media Network, which also includes two radio stations and a newspaper.
Al-Iraqiya's employees are paid by the Iraqi Finance Ministry according to wage scales set for civil servants across the government, station officials said.
But Shameem Rassam, the station's general director, said ties with the government end with the paycheck. "We are independent in our editorial policy. Nobody dictates to us about what to do," said Rassam, who hosted programs on Iraqi state television before emigrating to the United States 13 years ago and ultimately settling in Arlington County.
Al-Iraqiya is one element in the occupation authority's public relations campaign, which includes frequent news conferences by U.S. and allied officials, usually covered live on al-Iraqiya with Arabic translation, and private briefings for groups of Iraqi journalists. From the back of military trucks rolling slowly through traffic, troops distribute copies of Baghdad Now, a biweekly tabloid in Arabic and English covering the activities of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division. Other U.S. soldiers walk the streets in full combat gear, handing out pamphlets calling on residents to oppose terrorism and provide information about insurgents.
Independent sources of news in Iraq remain limited. Of the six daily newspapers, the most widely read is Zaman, an independent publication that prints separate editions for Baghdad and the south and the north of the country.
Four of the other daily papers are issued by political parties and openly promote their interests. The sixth, Sabah, a publication of the U.S.-led provisional authority, offers a wider range of news coverage than its sister television station, al-Iraqiya. Several other television stations broadcast in Iraq, but they are clearly identified with political parties or neighboring countries, particularly Iran.
Arabic-language satellite channels based outside Iraq are winning an ever-widening audience as satellite dishes, banned under the government of deposed president Saddam Hussein, proliferate. But U.S. officials have repeatedly accused them of anti-American bias, and some Iraqis agree that the stations are unduly critical of U.S.-led forces.
During its first eight months of operation, al-Iraqiya has had a stream of managers and news directors. Rassam herself joined only two months ago after working at one of the affiliated radio stations.
Rassam supervises a staff of about 300 employees, many of them energetic but green journalists. They have taken up quarters in cramped, windowless rooms behind the razor wire and sandbags of the Baghdad Convention Center, a heavily guarded building that the Governing Council calls home. The carpets are tattered and the clocks on the walls stopped long ago. Employees say they are short of cameras, editing equipment and computers, but much of what they do have is brand-new, compliments of the U.S. government.
Current and former employees of al-Iraqiya, including several who are highly critical of its operations, echoed Rassam's assertion that there has been no interference by U.S. officials in daily decisions about news programming. But some said they were reluctant to air reports that could antagonize U.S. officials. In part, they said, they have yet to shake the media culture of the Hussein era.
"For those of us who were working in the previous Iraqi media, there is some kind of fear about whether the Americans will agree or not agree with what we do. The longer you worked in the previous state media, the more fear you have," said Abdel Salam Dhari, 43, the station's news director, who had been a translator at the official Jumhuriyah newspaper.
For months, al-Iraqiya declined to broadcast reports about attacks by Iraqi insurgents on U.S.-led forces, Dhari said. He noted that the station in recent weeks had begun to cover such violence. But the reports are often less detailed and more sporadic than those in the Western news media and on the Arabic satellite television channels.
The station has also refrained from airing some dispatches because of concerns they could incite anti-American feelings, current and former employees said. Rassam said Iraqis, after years of dictatorship, are not ready for the freewheeling media prevalent the West. "Iraq is going through a phase, opening its eyes for the first time," she said.
Al-Iraqiya's management has banned newscasters from using the word "occupation" to describe the presence of U.S.-led forces in the country, though the term is common in the Western media and acknowledged by U.S. officials to accurately describe the current situation. Station employees said the term casts U.S. forces in a negative light.
"For us Iraqis, we have to cool down the passions," said Ali Karim Shamari, 24, a reporter at the station.
But some Iraqis said they resented what they called a dumbed-down version of the news prepared by outsiders, including exiles returning to Iraq for the first time in years.
"The people of Iraq are not as simple-minded as they believe," said Ahmed Abdul Majid, chief editor of Zaman. "They don't give us an accurate picture. It's not complete, and they're still too cautious."
Media critics and many ordinary Iraqis agree that the station has yet to seriously tackle many problems now bedeviling everyday life, such as gas lines, electricity shortages and street crime. Alaa Juburi, a correspondent and producer who recently left al-Iraqiya to work for a U.S. television network in Baghdad, said local reporters should be grilling Iraqi ministers about these problems but are reluctant to challenge them.
Instead, the station provides an open forum for U.S. and Iraqi officials. In a program that aired several times last week, two spokesmen from the U.S. provisional administration and the Governing Council were shown over coffee at a local restaurant, talking for a half-hour about U.S. plans to transfer political control this year. Station officials said this was part of al-Iraqiya's mission to inform the public.
Coupled with a flat, drab presentation that Iraqis say is reminiscent of the grim newscasts of the Hussein era, al-Iraqiya's staid news judgment is costing it viewers. An October survey conducted for the State Department in seven cities found that 63 percent of Iraqis with satellite dishes preferred getting their news from either al-Jazeera or al-Arabiya -- the leading Arabic satellite channels -- while only 12 percent chose al-Iraqiya.
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