USG-funded Alhurra TV -- "once" aimed at foreign audiences -- covers America ... for Americans via the USA MSM.

For an October 6 update on this entry, see

Alhurra Network Caught D.C. Car Chase on Camera -  Alana Abramson, ABC News

The historical importance of this tragic event (see below full article), of a mentally ill woman shot by members of police forces in Washington D.C., should not, from a media perspective, be underestimated. This (to the best of my limited knowledge) is the first "breaking news" in recent memory directed to the USA about the USA that was covered by the U.S. MSM via footage from a USG-funded TV station (some would say propaganda station) originally established to "communicate" to foreign, rather than American audiences.

When will other "breaking news" be provided by a USG-funded media outlet rather than directly by private news organizations to the American viewing public about events in the United States (granted, with some information obtained through official USG sources, but not through USG "propaganda" broadcasts, no matter how "benign") ?

"News is the shock troops of propaganda" 

--John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith, the founder of the BBC.

JB Notes/questions: 

(1) Why/how was the coverage by the Alhurra "exclusive?" (granted, the USG "indirectly" funds it). Copyright lawyers: Please enlighten me. 

(2) I'm willing to bet the MSM editors had no idea that Alhurra was a USG funded TV because of the Arabic above its English. They probably got it confused with Al Jazeera.

(3) As I looked at that clip, I thought I was a viewer in the Middle East ... 

(4) Also, having served as a Foreign Service officer in communist-dominated Eastern Europe during the Cold War, seeing a major event being covered by a state (am referring to a central government) TV station (granted, only in part) left me quite concerned about the future of media freedom in the "homeland."

(5) According to a senior VOA employee, apparently "the largest single market for VOA's Somali program is --- Minneapolis!" Was having such a large (granted "niche") domestic audience the original purpose of VOA's programs (begun in 1942), intended for international listeners?  Well, I guess times have changed (I won't say, now the US has to propagandize the whole world, including its very own USA).

(6) Perhaps unintentionally, but the USG is "hiding" its presence in this clip by not stating that "this footage is sponsored/presented thanks to U.S. government funding." So your typical American viewer -- not familiar with Alhurra or the sources of its funding -- has no idea that what s/he is seeing is brought to her/him thanks to taxpayers' money.
(7) There are increasing questions in the media (see "Execution on our Streets" by Peter Van Buren) about the shooting of this mentally-ill woman  (with a child in her car, thank God spared of bullets) by USG police forces. Would it not have been appropriate in such an uncertain situation for the MSM to provide footage not provided by a USG-funded media outlet?

Here's the article, with its pix

All the major U.S. networks were in the nation's capital when it went on lockdown today after a suspect attempted to ram barriers at the White House with a car, but only one little-known station managed to get video of the suspect's car chase just moments before it was all over - Alhurra TV, a U.S. government-funded Middle Eastern news station.

Operated by the non-profit organization the Middle East Broadcasting Networks and financed by a grant from the U.S. government through the Broadcasting Board of Governors, Alhurra is designed to "provide the United States with an undistorted line of communication with the people of the Middle East."

Alhurra's website says the station's goal is to provide "objective, accurate, and relevant news" to its foreign audiences and says that the BBG acts as a "firewall" to protect the network's independence, but that hasn't stopped the station from previously being accused of being propaganda. BBG spokesperson Lynne Weil defended the network to ABC News, saying today that allegation is "an affront to these journalists, many of whom work in some of the roughest spots in the world and at great risk."

"That does not reflect the Alhurra of today. Alhurra does great work and has received awards," Weil said. "Its programs are quoted by other media quite frequently across the U.S. and in the regions that they serve."

The BBG itself, which also operates Voice of America and Radio Free Europe among others, raked in more than $700 million in Congressional funding last year.

So why haven't many Americans heard of Alhurra?

Up until this July, a 1948 law known as the Smith-Mundt Act prohibited government-funded news services that were designed to provide news to a foreign audience, like those that fall under the BBG's umbrella, from broadcasting domestically. The recent passage of the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act eases that restriction, but the BBG says it still is authorized only to create programs for foreign audiences and the BBG "does not seek to change that."

Like other U.S. government-funded foreign news programs, Alhurra was spared from the government shutdown that has halted countless federal services.

As for how they got the chase video, the BBG's Weil told ABC News, "The TV crew was in the right place at the right time to capture extraordinary and exclusive footage of a major news event [that] took place in the U.S. and needs explaining to people elsewhere in the world."

Then American news networks, including ABC News, were able to take it from there to show their own audiences at home.

[EDITOR'S UPDATE Oct. 4, 2013: BBG spokesperson Lynne Weil clarified that in her defense of the network, she was responding only to accusations that Alhurra was a propaganda network leveled in a pair of reports late 2000s and not a broader range of criticisms, including allegations of ineffectiveness. Today Weil declined to comment on those allegations.]

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