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PART 3
Bush administration struggles to build U.S. 'brand' abroad
WASHINGTON — The public relations war against
terrorism is being waged from Iowa farmer Bob Osborne's barn.
That’s where a “Good Morning Egypt” crew filmed anchorwoman
Shereen el Wakeel as she interviewed the Shellsburg, Iowa, dairy farmer.
“I wanted to address some of the stereotypes we have of Americans
from TV and movies — people in fancy clothes, girls in tight pants,"
she said.
The portly Osborne glances sheepishly at his well-worn insulated coveralls.
"Don't think I'd fit," he says. Later in the segment, which
aired in May, Osborne and others argue that Americans are just like everyone
else, and el Wakeel agrees.
Broadcasts like this, produced through a federally funded exchange program
involving Arab and American journalists, make up a public diplomacy effort
that many see as a key in the administration’s war on terrorism.
The State Department effort is designed to reach the general public in
foreign countries — as opposed to government officials in those
countries — through broadcasts, exchange programs, speaking tours,
articles in foreign papers and the Internet.
Public diplomacy became a top priority after the Sept. 11 attacks, when
the Bush administration pledged to dispel mistaken impressions of America
and challenge anti-American views, especially in the Muslim world.
"In general, public diplomacy has been undervalued over the years,"
national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told Gannett News Service.
"The need to communicate better with the Muslim world has not been
fully understood."
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Results disappointing
But even supporters of the new effort, which is headed by Undersecretary
of State Charlotte Beers, say the results so far are not encouraging based
on private polls, anti-American protests and surveys financed by the State
Department.
"Weak, very weak," is how University of Qatar political science
professor Louay Bahry described the public diplomacy effort. It is reaching
only the elite, who tend to support the United States anyway, he said.
“There's more anti-Americanism now” than before Sept. 11,
he said. “That's not good. You have to do something about it.”
Hafez Al-Mirazi, Washington bureau chief for the Qatar-based satellite
channel Al-Jazeera, recalled that top administration officials did make
themselves more accessible to his station and its 45 million viewers in
October during the onset of the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan,
but for only about a week. U.S. officials complained that the exposure
didn’t sway enough of the audience, he said.
“Don’t expect the whole Arab world to wave the U.S. flag”
because Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld give Al-Jazeera one
interview, said Al-Mirazi, a former Voice of America and BBC reporter.
"You have to keep at it, just like you are doing on the Sunday talk
shows every week.”
Many Muslims still question Osama bin Laden's involvement in the Sept.
11 attacks.
“America has not yet satisfied us it was Osama bin Laden. We have
not yet seen clear evidence,” said Nigerian Al-Shieck Ahmad Lemo,
who was in Washington this month for a goodwill tour by top Muslim leaders.
Imams continue to deliver anti-American diatribes that go unanswered.
And articles in state-run papers still question American culture and the
motives behind U.S. foreign policy, said Charles Ginsberg, a former ambassador
to Morocco and frequent guest on Al-Jazeera.
“If we are to turn the tide in the war on terror, we ignore this
cascade of hatred at our peril," he said.
Part of the problem is the State Department’s sluggish reaction
time, said Harold Pachios, chairman of the government's Advisory Commission
for Public Diplomacy.
"The State Department is a very slow bureaucracy, and it will take
a while to change the culture." Pachios said.
But he credits Beers with an innovative strategy.
“She has ideas,” he said. “She has new approaches to
things."
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Selling the 'brand'
Beers, a former advertising executive, concedes that America's "brand"
is proving a tough sell in the Islamic world, where the United States
is increasingly seen as an indifferent and arrogant bully.
As a first step, Beers’ marketing campaign uses polls and focus
groups to learn how foreigners see the United States and what their impressions
are based on.
"The way to open a door so firmly closed — as we learned in
years of message-building in advertising — is to know and like the
audience," Beers said. "Talk from their point of view, not yours.
Think in terms of the response wished for, not what you want to say.”
So far the Bush administration has:
— Invited journalists from Indonesia, the world's most populous
Muslim nation, to tour the United States and explore how Americans and
American Muslims live. The result: More than 60 articles, many quoting
American Muslims talking about their ability to practice Islam freely
in the United States.
— Worked with California-based Globe TV to fund an exchange of Arab
and U.S. journalists, including the anchorwoman from "Good Morning
Egypt."
— Produced short videos profiling Muslim Americans in professions
such as teaching and firefighting to show that the United States is open
and tolerant. The programs were tested in Jakarta and Cairo, where focus
groups asked to learn more, and will be shown in nine predominantly Muslim
countries this fall.
— Begun a search for the thousands of foreign professionals, students
and artists who participated in government-sponsored exchange programs,
in the hope they will agree to become mini-ambassadors.
— Opened an Arabic-language broadcasting service — Radio Sawa
— that reaches across the Middle East.
Judging from embassy reports and gushing e-mails from listeners, Radio
Sawa is the government's most successful public diplomacy venture. Created
by Westwood One founder Norm Pattiz, the broadcast service is aimed at
Arab listeners under age 30. It broadcasts music, sports, weather and
twice-an-hour newscasts.
"Give people music and sports, they'll listen to it," said Mohamed
Elsetouhi, a correspondent for Nile TV, an Egyptian station.
But listeners may be ignoring Radio Sawa’s newscasts — the
core of the public diplomacy mission.
"The chances are the Arab youth will split the strategy: take the
U.S. sound and discard the U.S. agenda," the respected Cairo-based
weekly Al-Ahram wrote in a May editorial.
Critics of the public diplomacy effort say no amount of spin-doctoring
will change the minds of savvy foreign audiences angry about America’s
support for Israel and other unpopular policies. Others say the United
States should not be in the propaganda business.
"I think public diplomacy is doing more harm than good," said
Sheldon Rampton, editor of the Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch,
a liberal nonprofit that investigates the public relations industry. "Sometimes
this approach is referred to as the 'hypodermic' model — an attempt
to inject your message into the minds of others."
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Lawmakers back effort
Congress is also playing an active role in promoting the public diplomacy
effort.
In April, the House International Relations Committee passed the Freedom
Protection Act introduced by committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill. The
measure would boost spending on public diplomacy by about 12 percent a
year over this year's budget of about $1 billion, a figure that includes
all exchange programs and broadcasting.
Advocates of public diplomacy say it proved its effectiveness during the
Cold War. Polish President Lech Walesa called the U.S.-funded Radio Free
Europe his nation's true "ministry of information."
"We who have lived in closed societies know the value of a radio
transistor that receives VOA in our mother tongue," said Veton Surroi,
chairman of a Kosovo media group, about Voice of America.
But the United States largely dismantled its public diplomacy effort after
communism collapsed, said Barry Fulton, director of the Public Diplomacy
Institute at George Washington University. The independent U.S. Information
Agency was abolished in 1999 and a new public diplomacy unit was created
in the State Department at a cost savings of between 20 percent and 50
percent.
Since Sept. 11, public diplomacy is again a top priority, and not just
where the Muslim world is concerned. In China, for example, the State
Department publishes a weekly report in Mandarin. In Africa, it uses puppets
and street theater to fight AIDS. In Cuba, it provides press kits for
journalists.
Beers plans to boost polling and focus groups in the Muslim world, the
Philippines, Thailand and Latin America. She acknowledged that some of
her programs may not succeed but said the only real failure would be to
cede the debate to anti-U.S. extremists.
"The worst thing we could do" she said, "is yield to silence."
INTERACTIVE MAP:
U.S.
relations with the world
CONTINUE ON TO:
PART 3
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©2002,
Gannett News Service
Shereen el Wakeel, left, anchorwoman for "Good Morning Egypt"
talks with
dairy farmer Bob Osborne at his Shellsburg, Iowa, farm in this image from
video. Shereen el Wakeel traveled across the U.S. to address some of the
stereotypes "we have of Americans from TV and movies," she said.
(GNS/Globe TV photo)
U.S. Undersecretary
of State Charlotte Beers has been praised for her innovative ideas about
public diplomacy by Harold Pachios, chairman of the government's Advisory
Commission for Public Diplomacy.
Gannett News Service
photo by Heather Martin
Morrissey
