PR WATCH

The Hill: 24-HOUR MID-EAST TV TO PROMOTE "FREEDOM & DEMOCRACY"
The White House expects congressional funding to the tune of $64
million for the first-ever, 24-hour Arabic-language satellite
television network. "The aim is to provide the Middle East's tens
of millions of viewers with an alternative to their usual viewing
diet of unremediated anti-American propaganda," the Hill's Melissa
Seckora reports. Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman of the Broadcasting
Board of Governors (BBG), called the proposed network "the most
important public diplomacy initiative of our time." Westwood One
media mogul Norman Pattiz, who sits on the BBG and has produced TV
news for Iraq, bills the proposed Mid-East TV as a "journalistic
mission” to "promote and sustain freedom and democracy,” the Hil
reports. "We want to give the Arab world an example of what a free
press is. We want to do it in a way that is not like the
sensationalistic approach taken by the media in that region, one
that includes incitement to violence and disinformation,” Pattiz
said.