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US dollars shape Iraq's media
By Sergei Danilochkin
PRAGUE
- The United States-led Coalition Provisional Authority
(CPA) in Iraq has awarded a US$96 million contract to a
US producer of communications equipment to run and
upgrade Iraq's broadcast and print media for the next 12
months.
In a separate effort, a US-funded
24-hour Arabic-language satellite television network
will start broadcasting to the Middle East within weeks.
Part of that effort will focus on delivering news and
information programming to an Iraqi audience.
Florida-based Harris Corporation has forged a
partnership with two Middle Eastern media companies to
develop the network, currently known as al-Iraqiyah. The
network will upgrade and expand media outlets in place
under the former regime of Saddam Hussein.
Howard Lance, the head of Harris Corp, says that
the company and its partners are happy to help in
rebuilding Iraq's broadcast infrastructure and turning
it into a more modern news operation. "The project that
we have won is for us to develop and implement the Iraq
Media Network [IMN], which is a combination of two radio
channels, two television channels and a daily
newspaper," he said. "And ultimately, the objective here
is to get in place an organization that is staffed by
local Iraqis and governed by some sort of board of
directors and over time has the ability to operate at a
very high standard relative to developing local news
content and broadcast, local entertainment content and
broadcast, and the like."
According to Lance,
the IMN - when completely up and running - will have 30
TV and radio transmitters, three broadcast studios and
12 bureaus around Iraq. A national newspaper, al-Sabah -
formerly run by Saddam's son Uday Hussein - is also
integrated into the IMN.
After US-led troops
ousted Saddam's regime in April, the state-run
broadcasters were seized. Since then, they have been run
by a US defense contractor, Science Applications
International Corporation. Its efforts were criticized
for the inadequate audience the programs gathered and
management problems.
The postwar director of
Iraqi Television, Ahmad al-Rikaby, who resigned last
August, complained of inadequate funding, equipment and
training for staff members. Rikaby said the problems
made it hard for the network to meet its goal of
supplying objective news.
Al-Rikaby told the
Associated Press that the IMN was only able to broadcast
16 hours a day, while competitors alJazeera and Iran's
al-Alam TV networks were putting out 24-hour news
programs.
Harris Corp says it will provide the
IMN with the necessary equipment and management
expertise, while one partner, the Lebanese Broadcast
Corporation, will help improve training and content. A
second partner, al-Fawares of Kuwait, will help build up
the newspaper business.
"The Lebanese Broadcast
Corporation has significant experience in television and
radio broadcasting. They will be training all of the
employees for the television and radio broadcast portion
of this project, putting in place processes and
procedures to develop original content for the media.
And our second partner, al-Fawares, which is a Kuwait
company with significant Iraqi ownership, will be
providing all of the infrastructure for the newspaper
side of the business," Lance said.
Lance says
that the free flow of information is crucial to any
modern society, and the partner companies are committed
to making this ambitious goal a reality.
He said
the current contract can be extended for two additional
six-month periods for a total potential value of $165
million. He did not know if the IMN would remain under
US military supervision or be handed over to Iraqi
authorities after sovereignty is transferred to a new
government on July 1.
US Senator Richard Lugar
(Republican), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, recently expressed concern about the US media
program in Iraq. Lugar told the White House that the
State Department should take responsibility for
supervising the IMN after July 1.
In a separate
effort, a US government-funded satellite television
network in Arabic will start broadcasting within a few
weeks. It will be called al-Hurra and broadcast from
studios in Washington and bureaus in the Middle East.
According to Joan Mower, the communications
coordinator of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors,
which also oversees RFE/RL broadcasting, the new
television network will have "as many as 200 people
working there. And it will be an all-Arabic-language
news and information network. It will be 24 hours a day.
And much of the programming will be news programming,
informational programming, lifestyle programming with
the heavy emphasis on news like on Cable News Network."
But she said it will also "feature other,
different types of programs such as sports and
entertainment and lifestyle. Anyone in the Middle East
who has a satellite dish will be able to pull it down
and watch it."
Mower says special emphasis will
be placed on news and information flows to Iraq, where
television has become a major source of information. "In
Iraq we will have a separate stream. It will be a
terrestrial stream, so when we get that launched, people
in Iraq will also be able to watch our network," she
said.
Al-Hurra will cover the entire
Arab-speaking region from the Atlantic Ocean to the
Persian Gulf. Its operation budget for 2004 was approved
for $62 million as well as $40 million specially
earmarked for broadcasting to Iraq.
Mower says
the US initiative is a reaction to the news media
environment in the Arabic-speaking world, which is
dominated by Qatar-based alJazeera and Dubai's
al-Arabiyah satellite TV stations. The US administration
has often been critical of their broadcasts, calling
them biased.
Copyright (c) 2002, RFE/RL Inc.
Reprinted with the permission of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut
Ave NW, Washington DC 20036
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