[HCDX] Radio Sawa: America's new adventure in radio broadcasting

["Zacharias Liangas " <greekdx@xxxxxxxxx>]

Radio Sawa: America's new adventure in radio broadcasting
http://arabmediasociety.sqgd.co.uk/topics/index.php?t_article=119
By Sam Hilmy
According to its founders, Radio Sawa was designed to report the news 
'straight up' so listeners could 'decide for themselves'.

According to its founders, Radio Sawa was designed to report the news 
'straight up' so listeners could 'decide for themselves'.

May, 2007. In April 2002, the U.S. Government launched an audacious 
new Arabic language radio station aimed at the countries of the Middle 
East and North Africa.  The round-the-clock broadcasts, oddly dubbed 
Radio Sawa, replaced at a single stroke the respected brand name of 
the Voice of America's Arabic Service, which had for over a half 
century, in war and peace, provided the region with comprehensive full 
service programming.

A predominantly pop music service designed to appeal to youth, Sawa 
was established at the behest of American commercial media mogul 
Norman Pattiz who, until his resignation at the end of 2006, was a 
member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an 
independent U.S. federal agency.  The BBG oversees all non-military 
U.S. Government-funded broadcast outlets.  To run the new station, the 
BBG under Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson (a former chairman of the 
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, editor of Reader's Digest and 
director of the VOA who also recently abandoned his government 
position under a cloud of criticism for mismanagement) founded and 
funded the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), a non-profit 
corporation.  MBN also operates Sawa's younger twin Arabic TV 
satellite channel Alhurra.

Mr. Tomlinson has publicly described his friend and colleague Mr. 
Pattiz as "the father of Radio Sawa."  After the station was launched, 
Mr. Pattiz described it in a public forum in ecstatic terms:  "It sounded 
so different and it was so appealing-because it really sounds like a 
Western contemporary music station, a pop station."
Sawa's Mission

Like any successful big-time business executive, Mr. Pattiz 
commissioned a survey and "a lot of advance research" before 
embarking on the costly, large-scale project of a 24/7 Arabic language 
radio station.  The Middle East survey results, according to him, 
showed three things:  (a) "over 60 percent of the population ... is under 
the age of 30,"  (b) "the indigenous media, especially radio ... everything 
was pretty dull and pretty drab, and it sounded like government radio," 
and (c) "people were interested in something that didn't sound like 
government radio."  Mr. Pattiz decided that this was what businessmen 
call "the hole in the marketplace."  In order to fill this "hole" with his 
product, Radio Sawa, he needed ample sources of cash and the most 
modern broadcast facilities to reach the audience with a clear signal.  
The new station cost the American taxpayer $34 million in its first year.  
He secured clear FM transmission to most Arab countries and a 
powerful medium wave to the rest.  The VOA's Arabic Service cost the 
U.S. Government less than $5 million annually and transmitted its 
programs on a limited medium wave and a few short waves at the time 
it was replaced by Sawa.

Mr. Pattiz described his new station's mission as "... reporting the news 
straight up and letting the listeners ...decide for themselves." He said 
that in addition to Sawa's journalistic mission, it aspires to be "an 
example of a free press in the American tradition."   He added:  "We 
generally play an Arabic pop song followed by a Western pop song.  
And then we'll have news, five to ten minutes in length, twice an hour, 
with headlines at the top and bottom of the hour."
Program Components[1]

Sawa's constant on-air slogan boasts about "the loveliest tunes and the 
latest news."  It never identifies itself as an American station or where it 
broadcasts from.  Its round-the-clock airtime is divided into roughly 20 
percent news and 80 percent pop music.  Everything the listener hears 
other than the music is called The World Now. This rubric 
encompasses the presentation of hard news, light news, bromide and 
topical features and interviews, sports and so forth.  The only exception 
is a daily 30-minute news program called Iraq and the World, half of 
which is rerun an hour later.  No news-related material ever interrupts, 
or is incorporated within, the music portion-no matter how urgent the 
breaking news.  Sawa does not carry discrete, identifiable "programs" 
with distinct titles, individual star talent and performers, music themes 
and thematic focus.  No news "bulletins" are heard alerting listeners to 
momentous world events.

Unlike its plethora of field reporters and stringers, the station's studio 
readers, anchor persons and host announcers are never identified by 
name.  This anonymity applies to the readers of widely scattered 
promos outside the news portions, plugging for Sawa, its website and 
(since February 2004) its sister TV channel Alhurra.
News Content

Contrary to Mr. Pattiz's claim, Sawa never carries heads at the top and 
bottom of the hour.  It provides news only twice every hour, usually five 
minutes every quarter after the hour and a minute or two of headlines 
every quarter before the hour.  The five-minute segments are variously 
called "newscast" or "full newscast" or "detailed newscast."  The 
headlines are always presented as "summary."  The full-length news 
may occasionally run up to 10, 15 or even 30 minutes, as in the 
exceptional case of the daily "Iraq and the World."  Therefore, I would 
estimate that the station provides between 7 and 17 minutes of world 
news per hour.  A fair and generous average would then be 10 minutes 
per hour, which brings the total news time in a 24-hour cycle to 240 
minutes.  This is less than half the 600-minute daily claim made by 
Sawa officials in media interviews.

All "full newscasts" begin with three to four headlines, which sometimes 
pose a

A Radio Sawa presenter is put through his paces.

confusing problem for listeners:  the first headline may not necessarily 
be a reference to the first item in the body of the newscast, or an 
opening head is interrogatively formulated in a misleading and 
tabloidish style that does not accurately or fully reflect the substance of 
the news item itself.  Another news-related inconsistency has to do with 
repeating the main headlines or the lead head at the conclusion of 
newscasts, and how to close a news program.   Sawa's newsreaders 
seem to follow their own whims in this regard.  In fact, some readers do 
not even close before the studio engineer plays the usual taped lead-
out, "We relay the event to you in sound so you can form a complete 
picture."  The headline news always ends with a prerecorded 
exhortation:  "Stay in touch with the world-(through) The World Now."  
At times even these lead-outs are skipped before moving on to the pop 
songs.

A more serious problem that plagues Sawa's news handling goes to the 
core of evaluating priorities and exercising professional judgment 
regarding the relative significance of world events.  Most and 
sometimes all news stories in one newscast are jettisoned in favor of 
another set of items in the next news presentation an hour later.  This is 
done with shocking disregard for news value or breaking news.  Rarely 
does a listener hear major stories repeated from hour to hour after 
proper updating or rewriting to freshen up the next program.  Such a 
cavalier approach to news material distorts the overall picture of world 
happenings for the vast majority of listeners who normally zero in on 
specific time slots instead of staying glued to a station all day.  Sawa's 
practice also reflects ignorance of what should constitute a day's major 
news leads.  There are always major news developments that require 
coverage in more than just one newscast.

Although on rare occasions a listener would hear a flawless, 
impeccable, rich and seamless newscast with a perfect lineup, ample 
voice actualities and anchor confidence, the more prevalent practice 
gives listeners a messy picture of thematic and topical chaos.  Related 
items on one event can be separated by several unrelated items.  Big 
news developments on tragic events can be used as closers and, 
conversely, a light routine item or a local insignificant item may be given 
a prominent place in a newscast.  Almost any news development can 
be used by Sawa as a lead.  On a day full of important news, Sawa 
leads one newscast with a Jordanian government announcement that 
Amman has not decided whether to resume commercial flights to 
Baghdad.  The lead story of another newscast quotes the London Daily 
The Independent as saying that the Bush administration had advance 
knowledge of the 9/11 attack, but no official American response is 
provided to give the story balance and context.  An hour later the 
station drops the item altogether.
Covering Iraq

Let's now turn our attention to a major news story of global significance 
that has preoccupied the world media for more than four years-the 
invasion and occupation of Iraq-and track Sawa's treatment of it.

When American and British forces launched their air and ground 
offensives in the spring of 2003, practically the whole world was calling 
this pre-emptive military action an "invasion" of a sovereign nation.  Yet 
the word "invasion" disappeared from Sawa's lexicon.  When Baghdad 
fell and the US-led coalition settled down to run the country, the entire 
world (including the United Nations, the media and even the Bush 
administration) admitted it was an "occupation".  Yet Sawa's broadcasts 
avoided the word "occupation" like the plague and rarely referred to 
Iraqi civilian victims of air raids and other military operations.  When 
anarchy, lawlessness and looting engulfed Iraq after the regime 
change, the American station continued to beam its customary pop 
songs and perfunctory news that lacked in-depth coverage and 
responsible discussion.  The looting and devastation prompted Dr. 
Robert Darnton, professor of European history at Princeton University, 
to tell The Washington Post:  "As many have remarked, the Mongol 
invasion of A.D. 1258 resulted in less damage to Iraqi civilization than 
the American invasion of 2003."  Sawa's news coverage, however, had 
no time for such views of events.

A few months into the occupation, America's first head of the postwar 
mission in Iraq, retired general Jay Garner was unceremoniously 
replaced with Ambassador Paul Bremer.  The new top administrator 
quickly started running the vanquished country by decree:  he 
disbanded the Iraqi army, banned the Baath party and fired all its 
members from government jobs, closed down most of the country's 
industries, and appointed his favorite Iraqis to the new Governing 
Council.  These momentous developments and their dire 
consequences for both occupier and occupied received scant, 
superficial treatment from Sawa.  The station was busy focusing on 
President Bush's rosy predictions and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's 
unreal statements that "stuff happens" and America "will not impose a 
government on Iraq."  In the meantime, former U.N. Secretary General 
Kofi Annan's special envoy to Baghdad Lakhdar Brahimi publicly 
described Bremer as the new "dictator of Iraq... Nothing happens 
without his agreement."  But Sawa was telling its listeners about the 
great help Brahimi was giving "the Coalition" to prepare Iraq for a 
democratic future.  And the station's field reporters initially maintained 
complete silence about the torture and shocking abuses inside Abu 
Ghraib prison of which Iraqis were already aware (through word of 
mouth and complaints by international human rights organizations) long 
before the American TV program 60 Minutes broke the news.

Eventually, as the situation in Iraq deteriorated, Radio Sawa expanded 
its coverage with the inauguration of a 30-minute daily program called 
Iraq and the World at 10:15 PM Baghdad time, and a 15-minute version 
an hour later.  This news and opinion roundup does neither Iraq nor the 
United States a favor, and should perhaps be called Iraq and Iraq, 
because the rest of the world is non-existent in it-except for a fleeting 
and parochial reference.  It also suffers from the same shortcomings of 
all Sawa news programs.  Quality control is very poor.  The program 
airs dozens of voiced news pieces and long interviews from field 
reporters around the country without evaluating, auditing, double-
checking and editing them in advance.  The results:  poor or 
contradictory sourcing, outdated information, unprofessional language 
and duplicated material.  The show also suffers from lack of 
preplanning and a chaotic format, allowing airtime to become a platform 
for emotional, unrestrained views.  Any major news story that is not 
Iraq-related is either completely ignored or marginalized.  A good 
example is hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans and the 
Gulf coast of the U.S. in 2005.  Even the Israel-Lebanese Hizbullah war 
in the summer of 2006 received only inadequate and indirect mention 
with no reportage about the intense fighting or world reaction.
Sound and Music

Sawa uses an impressive number of voices on the air, both male and 
female, as studio talent and field reporters.  The professional quality of 
their delivery and their mastery of broadcast language, however, are 
very uneven, ranging from the highly effective and convincing to the 
very poor, from the smooth and natural to the awkward and halting, 
from the authoritative and pleasant to the pompous and pretentious.  
The impact of these voices on and receptivity by the listeners, 
therefore, vary widely and depend to a large extent on matching each to 
the reading assignment he or she is given.  Aside from field reporters, 
performers are kept anonymous and the gifted stars among them are 
not optimally utilized as a tool to build up faithful fans of specific 
program features.

Music is used thematically by Sawa to identify the news.  The theme for 
newscasts is satisfactory and utilitarian but somewhat pedestrian and, 
after a few weeks of listening, becomes tiresome to the ear.  The 
theme for the summaries is annoying, distracting and overdramatic.  It 
is held for the length of the summary and the level is brought up 
deafeningly between individual headlines.  Some music stingers[2] are 
also used in a post-modern video game digital-age fashion to 
accompany echo chamber promos or sloganeering catch phrases.  The 
latter include such things as, "You listen to us, we listen to you," or, 
"From the ocean to the gulf, we are Sawa (i.e., together)."  At times the 
station mentions its website or a telephone number or a few sound 
bites from listeners in praise of Sawa or expressing opinions on some 
innocuous or provocative subject.

There is minimal use of the sophisticated craft of radio production to 
enhance program impact.  Rarely does a listener feel truly moved by a 
smooth forward flow of broadcast material.  Nor does one always feel 
comfortable with the timing and placement of recorded inserts and 
promos.  The station seems to have difficulty matching style to 
substance, harmonizing sound with words, utilizing a production device 
to enhance the effect of a program on a target audience living in non-
Anglo-Saxon cultural environment.

Pop Songs

This is a programming area that consumes about 80 percent of Sawa's 
airtime.  It should logically deserve a commensurate level of attention, 
talent and resources.  Yet after listening to endless hours of alternating 
Arabic and so-called "Western" pop songs, and trying to deduce some 
coherent, professional whole, we discover what a neglected, drifting 
wasteland all this airtime is.  Some egregious weaknesses are:  The 
music portions have no detectable character, personality or identity.  
The hourly segmentations cannot even be properly described as 
"programs" because they lack beginning and end that define the nature 
and flavor of the contents.  Nobody is in charge, and there is no star 
quality talent who might act as a guide to the listeners through the 
various component parts.  Almost none of the artists and songs are 
identified.   No informative narrative is ever provided to enlighten us 
about the types of songs played, the dates of issuance, the extent of 
their popularity and other distinguishing facts.  Talk interruptions come 
without artful, smooth transition flow or thematic unity.  In the transition 
from one song to the next, there is more often than not a definite jarring 
clash in rhythm, melody, tone, lyrical connotation, voice quality and 
vocal range.  Clocking groups of songs in any music period seems to 
receive little attention from producers and programmers.  As a result, 
when time comes for The World Now and the last song has to be faded 
for the news introduction cartridge, the ending is frequently mishandled 
by cutting off in the middle of unfinished lyrics.
Illusion and Reality


The founders of Sawa were convinced from the outset that, in order for 
their new broadcasting project to accomplish a successful reach to 
Arab audiences by "marrying the mission to the market," they needed to 
separate the station from the Voice of America.  The latter's mandate 
was too strict and broad for them.  The VOA was required to adhere to 
its Charter, enacted into law decades earlier, whose operative 
paragraphs are:

(1) VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of 
news.  VOA news will be accurate, objective and comprehensive.

(2) VOA will represent America, not any single segment of American 
society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive 
projection of American thought and institutions.

(3) VOA will present the policies of the United States clearly and 
effectively, and will also present responsible discussion and opinions on 
those policies.

To be sure, Sawa officials continued in their promotional material to pay 
lip service to their commitment "to broadcasting accurate, timely and 
relevant news about the Middle East, the world and the United States, 
to the highest standards of journalism, as well as the free marketplace 
of ideas, respect for the intelligence and culture of its audiences, and a 
style that is upbeat, modern and forward-looking."  But their real 
objective was to attract the Arab World's "youthful population" with pop 
songs and keep them tuned to the station.  In terms of current affairs 
content, Sawa has never attempted to focus adequately on anything but 
parochial backyard Arab news which marginalizes major American and 
world developments.

Pop is a major successful commercial enterprise that targets a wide 
youthful common denominator, but it alone cannot present the picture 
of America which American public diplomacy is intended to present-that 
of a country with rich, multifaceted culture, revolutionary ideals, 
commercial vitality, history-making values of human rights and social 
justice, and standards of transparent government.  Nor is pop music 
what young Arab needs today to form a more enlightened view of their 
societies and the world, or to build a more participatory society firmly 
rooted in human values.  Pop does not attract potential future leaders 
or opinion makers.  It does not build credibility.

News of the non-Arab world almost always plays second fiddle on 
Sawa's airtime.  The station has literally scores of news reporters in 
Arab capitals, especially in Iraq, but only one part-time reporter in the 
United States who provides reportage from the State Department or at 
times from The White House (but never from Congress).  Sure, Arab 
news is of utmost importance and a big draw, and must be accorded 
prominent play.  However, significant events (economic, cultural, 
scientific as well as political) always take place in America and 
elsewhere in the world, and they must be covered.

The true nature of Radio Sawa's broadcast content and performance 
remains a mystery to the legislative and executive branches of 
government in Washington, because the station continues to resist any 
outside, independent review and probe of its programs.  The station 
also refuses to accept the critical findings already reached by such 
investigative agencies as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) 
and the State Department Inspector General's office.

"The father of Radio Sawa," Mr. Norman Pattiz, years ago came to the 
conclusion that Arab hostility and dislike of America were caused by, in 
his words, "hate speak on radio and television.  Incitement to violence.  
Disinformation, government censorship and journalistic self-censorship.  
And it was from within that kind of environment that the Arab street was 
getting its impressions, not only of U.S. policy, but of our people, of our 
culture, of our society."  And he was going to set things right with his 
grand new broadcasting adventure.

Five years after a steady diet of Sawa pabulum, U.S. prestige and 
standing in the Arab World are at record low, and its image uglier than 
ever.  Official U.S. poll results show that in Iraq, for example, 70 
percent want the U.S. to withdraw from that country, and no less than 
60 percent approve of killing Americans.

This is perhaps the best testimony to the abject failure of Mr. Pattiz's 
grand design.

Sam Hilmy is a veteran Middle East broadcasting Specialist and long-
time observer of Arab-American affairs.  He was for almost 35 years 
associated with the Voice of America (VOA) in various language, 
editorial and managerial capacities.  He spent his last five years with 
the organization as director of the Near East, North Africa and South 
Asia Division.


http://zlgr.multiply.com (raidio monitoring site plus audio clips )
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/302315/ (Litohoro) 321199/Tinos 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zachgr    pictures upload 
.
on my main : www.geocities.com/zliangas 
-tty-px.html : test of various TTY programs
-ethics.htm    : greek ethics , days and institutions 
-frape.htm: the greek way of cofee !!! 
Zacharias Liangas , Thessaloniki Greece 
greekdx @ otenet dot gr  ---  
Pesawat penerima: ICOM R75 , Lowe HF150 , Degen 1102,1103,108,
Tecsun PL200/550, Chibo c300/c979, Yupi 7000 
Antenna: 16m hor, 2x16 m V invert, 1m australian loop 


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