The Lessons of Al Hurra Television

Palgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacy

Volumn , Issue , 2009, Pages 49-66

  Powers, Shawn ^a   Gody, Ahmed El ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Arab World; Foreign Policy; Middle East; News Broadcaster; News Product

Indexed keywords

EID: 80053954298     PISSN: 27313883     EISSN: 27313891     Source Type: Book Series    
DOI: 10.1057/9780230100855_3     Document Type: Chapter

References (52)

1. Al Hurra TV, “About Us,” available online at:
2. Myrna Whitworth, “America’s Voice as It Could Have Been,” Arab Media & Society, May 2007.
3. Alan L. Heil, “2007: A Fateful Year for America’s Voices?” Arab Media & Society, February 2007.
4. Cited in: Alex Ben Block, “Al Hurra Gallops Into Mideast Media Mix,” Television Week, March 2, 2004, available online at: < http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt& folder=1259&paper=1377>
5. United States Government Accountability Office, “US International Broadcasting: Management of Middle East Broadcasting Services Could be Improved,” GAO-06–762 (2006).
6. D. Jeffrey Hirschberg, “Public Diplomacy in the Middle East and South Asia: Is the Message Getting Through,” testimony before the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, May 16, 2007.
7. Broadcasting Board of Governors, “Fiscal Year 2009 Budget Request,” (2008), available online at:
8. Pan Arab Research Center, “Harvest Y2006,” Middle East Media Guide (2006).
9. Cited in: Alan L. Heil, “Rate of Arabic Language TV Start-Ups Shows No Sign of Abating,” Arab Media & Society, May 2007, p. 2.
10. Marwan M. Kraidy, “Arab Media and US Policy: A Public Diplomacy Reset,” Stanley Foundation Policy Analysis Brief, January 2008.
11. Quoted in: Matthew Craft, “US Arabic Channel a Turn-Off,” The Guardian, February 16, 2004, available online at: < http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/feb/16/broadcasting. usnews>
12. William A. Rugh, “Broadcasting and American Public Diplomacy,” Transnational Broadcasting Studies 14 (Spring 2005), available online at:
13. Kraidy, “Arab Media and US Policy.”
14. United States Government Accountability Office. “US International Broadcasting.”
15. Joel Mowbray, “Register’s Last Hurrah?” Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2007.
16. Joaquin F. Blaya, “Public Diplomacy in the Middle East and South Asia: Is the Message Getting Through,” testimony before the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, May 16, 2007.
17. United States Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors Office of Inspector General “Report of Inspection: Al Hurra’s Programming Policies and Procedures.” OIG Report No. ISP-IB-08–45 (2008).
18. Gary L. Ackerman, “Public Diplomacy in the Middle East and South Asia: Is the Message Getting Through,” testimony before the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, May 16, 2007.
19. United States Department of State, “Report of Inspection.”
20. Focus group. Cairo, Egypt. March (2008).
21. Alvin Snyder, “The Great Alhurra Debate,” Worldcasting, December 5, 2005, available online at:
22. Graham Messick, Michael Karzis, Dafna Linzer, and Michael Radutzky, “US-Funded Arab TV’s Credibility Crisis,” CBS News & ProPublica, June 22, 2008, available online at:
23. Dafna Linzer, “Alhurra’s Baghdad Bureau Mired in Controversy,” ProPublica, July 8, 2008, available online at:
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, “Letter to Howard L. Berman, Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs, US House of Representatives,” June 23, 2008, available online at:
27. Shibley Telhami, “2008 Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll,” Survey of the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland with Zogby International (2008).
28. For further detail, Telhami has posted the findings and raw data from his field work online at:
29. Broadcasting Board of Governors, “Broadcasting Board of Governors Corrects the CBS 60 Minutes Story about Alhurra Television,” June 23, 2008, available online at:
30. Rugh, “Broadcasting and American Public Diplomacy.”
31. United States Government Accountability Office, “US International Broadcasting,” 4.
32. Daniel Nassif, “We Do Not Spread Propaganda for the United States,” Middle East Quarterly XV, no. 2 (2008): 63–69.
33. Marc Lynch, “America and the Arab Media Environment,” in Engaging the Arab & Islamic Worlds Through Public Diplomacy, ed. William A. Rugh (Washington, D.C.: Public Diplomacy Council, 2004), 90–108.
34. Rugh, “Broadcasting and American Public Diplomacy.”
35. Focus group. Cairo, Egypt. March (2008).
36. Naomi Sakr, Arab Television Today (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007), 63.
37. Stig Hjarvard, “Mediated Encounters: An Essay on the Role of Communication Media in the Creation of Trust in the ‘Global Metropolis,’ ” in Global Encounters: Media and Cultural Transformation, ed. Gitte Stald and Thomas Tufte (Luton, UK: University of Luton Press, 2002), 69–84, 80.
38. Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, “The Broadcasting Board of Governors: Finding the Right Media for the Message in the Middle East,” testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on International Operations and Terrorism, April 29, 2004.
39. Broadcasting Board of Governors, “Radio Sawa and Alhurra TV: A Performance Update,” June 20, 2008, available online at: < http://www.bbg.gov/reports/others/Alhurra-Sawa_ Research_Data_June20–2%5B1%5D.ppt>
40. Cited in: Ellen McCarthy, “Va.-Based, US-Financed Arabic Channel Finds Its Voice,” Washington Post, October 15, 2004, 01.
41. Cited in: Nancy Snow, “Al Hurra-Al Who?: Haven’t Heard? We’re Free, They’re Not!” Commondreams.org, March 9, 2004, available online at:
42. Kraidy, “Arab Media and US Policy,” 5.
43. Focus group. Cairo, Egypt. March (2008).
44. Mohammed el-Nawawy, “US Public Diplomacy and the News Credibility of Radio Sawa and Television Al Hurra in the Arab World,” in New Media in the New Middle East, ed. Philip Seib (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 119–138.
45. Focus group. Cairo, Egypt. March (2008).
46. Snow, “Al Hurra-Al Who?”
47. Kraidy, “Arab Media and US Policy,” 4.
48. Philip Seib, The Al-Jazeera Effect (Washington D.C.: Potomac Books, 2008), 52.
49. Marc Lynch, Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, Al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006).
50. Howard L. Berman, “Broadcasting Board of Governors and Alhurra Television,” testimony, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on International Relations, November 10, 2005.
51. Kai Hafez, The Myth of Media Globalization (Cambridge, MA: Polity, 2007).
52. Nassif, “We Do Not Spread Propaganda,” 66.