USA’s image: The savages and the Voice of America

Americans would not settle down. There is another scandal being raised now, so short after the statement from the American president pertaining to the establishment of a special structure in the American administration for the foreign political propaganda. This time George Bush announced that the USA was establishing the new state radio station to broadcast in the Arab countries. Bush said that on Monday after he had visited the Voice of American headquarters.

The head of the White House congratulated the employees of the radio with its 60th anniversary and said that the new radio station, the Middle East Network, would become a branch company of the Voice of America. The programs of the new radio will include music, the news, “which will be trustworthy” and the information in the Arabic language.

The goal of the broadcasting in the Arab countries is to give those countries an opportunity to realize the American principles and actions better, as Bush said. In other words, it is about the creation of the positive image of America, which has been considerably spoiled by Al-Jazeera television network, so it is supposed to be raised up to the mark, because the Arabs do not want to perceive the USA as the liberator.

Why did the American president decide to stake on the radio? The television audience is way bigger, so there are a lot more opportunities there. It is easy to explain this: the countries, which cover the television audience somewhere around the 100% level, are hardly to become of interest to the States. These are the countries of Europe and a certain part of Asia. The television companies of the Middle East are totally controlled by the leaders of the countries, even the death penalty can be applied for the viewing of the satellite channels in some of the countries. So America got nothing to look for in that part of the market. So here you go – radio: not that expensive, more efficient, taking account of the VOA’s extensive experience in the field of American propaganda. For the time being this radio station broadcasts in 53 countries of the world, and its audience is more than 90 million people. So America’s weapon of the Cold War – the Voice of America is in the big picture again. It will now advocate the American lifestyle, narrating the stories in Thousand and One Night style.

Dmitry Chirkin PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/02/26/37583.html