Alhurra: patronizing propaganda attempting to pacify?

Neil MacFarquhar, author of The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East, "suggests the U.S. government's decision to counter Al-Jazeera with its own creation was misguided. Washington's Arabic-language news station, dubbed Al-Hurra or 'The Free One,' is headquartered not in the Middle East but in a suburb of the District of Columbia. It is primarily staffed with Lebanese reporters who speak an Arabic dialect that is difficult for viewers in neighboring Arab countries to understand. By contrast, Al-Jazeera broadcasters use a formal Arabic that is readily understood in all 22 Arabic-speaking states. Most Arabs have come to consider Al-Hurra little more than a patronizing propaganda tool of Washington." Gregory Black, San Jose Mercury News, 21 March 2009. US policy makers, MacFarquhar "suggests, should put less stress on American interests and more on the injustices suffered by people who live without the protection of due process and the rule of law. He finds a glimmer of hope in a popular (though banned) Saudi novel in which a girl looks to the struggle of Martin Luther King Jr. for inspiration." Wendell Steavenson, Washington Post, 24 May 2009.
     "Three months after the [Abu Ghraib] photo scandal, amid growing Arab and world outrage that showed no signs of calming, President Bush appeared on the U.S. government-run Arabic-language Al-Hurra TV. Many Arab commentators and columnists were expecting an apology and some high level officials to be held accountable. Neither happened. Bush said, 'I view those practices as abhorrent.' But he added that Iraqis 'must understand that what took place in that prison does not represent the America that I know.' The president's interview with his own station was seen in the Arab world as an attempt to pacify the situation instead of dealing appropriately with the problem." Octavia Nasr, CNN, 21 May 2009. Posted: 24 May 2009 Permalink Print