They Should Have Added A Morning Zoo

Nobody can resist a morning zoo.

Al-Hurra -- "The Free One" in Arabic -- is the centerpiece of a U.S. government campaign to spread democracy in the Middle East. Taxpayers have spent $350 million on the project. But more than four years after it began broadcasting, the station is widely regarded as a flop in the Arab world, where it has struggled to attract viewers and overcome skepticism about its mission [...]

Since its inception, al-Hurra has been plagued by mediocre programming, congressional interference and a succession of executives who either had little experience in television or could not speak Arabic, according to interviews with former staffers, other Arab journalists and viewers in the Middle East.

It has also been embarrassed by journalistic blunders. One news anchor greeted the station's predominantly Muslim audience on Easter by declaring, "Jesus is risen today!" After al-Hurra covered a December 2006 Holocaust-denial conference in Iran and aired, unedited, an hour-long speech by the leader of Hezbollah, Congress convened hearings and threatened to cut the station's budget.

"Many people just didn't know how to do their job," said Yasser Thabet, a former senior editor at al-Hurra. "If some problem happened on the air, people would just joke with each other, saying, 'Well, nobody watches us anyway.' It was very self-defeating."

Wow, I've worked at stations like that.

I know Radio Free Europe was a success, but can anyone think of an antecedent over the last 60 years? I think the idea of boosting your image in foreign lands by implanting propaganda is outdated. Radio Free Europe worked because citizens in Communist-controlled areas had no other options. Arabic-language TV stations are numerous in the Middle East and many were well-established before al-Hurra. It was an alternative where nobody thought one was needed.

This is not what you want to hear about your channel:

Arab journalists and viewers say al-Hurra has a basic problem: It is boring. Investigative pieces are rare, and critics say the channel generally doesn't make waves [...]

Unlike some Egyptians, Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed, a 67-year-old contractor, said it didn't bother him that al-Hurra was financed by the U.S. government. But he, too, complained that the programming was dull.

"I've clicked on it, but nothing's stopped me," he said. "Whether it's American or French or Israeli, good shows attract viewers. And I haven't seen anything interesting on al-Hurra."

The fact that practically nobody who put the channel together spoke Arabic is another issue.