As reported in Mediaite, the Secretary of State appeared before a U.S. Policy Priorities Committee today and spoke of an “information war” going on between the U.S. and opposing media organizations in what she seemed to characterize as a two-sided fight for world public opinion. The opposing,”winning” side included Al Jazeera, and Russian and Chinese multilingual media operations.
First, the time for singling out Al Jazeera as a monolithic barrier between the US and all of the interests it has and will have forever and ever should have ended long ago. This attitude reinforces a perceived (and real) disinterest on the part of American policymakers to engage with the debate and opinions coming out of the Arab public sphere. Al Jazeera seems like a strange bogeyman to be using when the US is trying (I presume, although the State Department information debacle early in the Egypt protests did its best to confuse everyone) to appear supportive, but not controlling, of real democratic change in the Arab world, and when many Americans depended on Al Jazeera English for the best coverage of Egypt.
Even worse is the implication that Al Hurra, the US controlled satellite TV option in the Arab world ought to be part of “winning” the war of information. The single digit share of the market it gets, as multiple Middle Eastern media experts would happily tell the State Department, give it next to no influence compared to Al Arabiya, let alone Al Jazeera.
I’d like to give Secretary Clinton the benefit of the doubt, because the phrasing of Sen. Lugar’s question put her in a tough position, and because she turned it all into a plug for the national and international value of public broadcasting (great, if not a hundred percent relevant). But it’s concerning to hear that the State Department appears to still be stuck in a very Cold War world of public diplomacy, in which one mouthpiece for democracy is up against one that represents the enemy. It’s complicated enough spreading the message that the US isn’t going to bully around the Middle East anymore when speaking in such terms. Public diplomacy ought to mean changing minds through charity, and policies which offer help without expecting any influence in return, and generally giving people reason to think you have the ideals you think you have ( I’m a dreamer, I know). If the US wants to spread a positive message in the Arab world, it ought to meet it half way.
middleeastaidan 