While America’s Adversaries Are Winning the Media Battle…It’s Allies Are Not Even Trying
By Hayvi Bouzo
America may be fighting what President Trump calls “endless wars” in the Middle East, but in the media world, Washington is itself a battleground where America’s adversaries are winning access and influence and its allies are barely even putting up a fight.
Among news business professionals, the global competition in our nation’s capital is well known. Two media giants from authoritarian regimes -- China’s Global Television Network (CGTN America) and Russia Today America (RT America) – have dramatically expanded their DC presence in recent years, expanding their news bureaus and establishing influence networks of paid commentators from past Republican and Democratic administrations. With Moscow and Beijing pouring millions into these operations, our allies’ tried-but-true news outlets – such as BBC, Deutsche Welle and Radio France International – can barely keep up.
But in the lesser-known regional competition waged by Middle East-based news outlets, America’s allies aren’t even in the fight. For example, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the two most “media savvy” Arab countries, each boasting large, influential television stations -- al-Arabiya and Sky News Arabiya, respectively. However, both have tiny Washington bureaus and no DC-based public affairs shows that regularly provide a sympathetic – or, at least, objective – look at US politics and policymaking.
Contrast this disinvestment in Washington-based coverage with the intense focus that Turkey’s Radio and Television Corporation (TRT World) and Qatar’s Muslim Brotherhood-friendly Al Jazeera give to politics and policy in our nation’s capital
Though based in a tiny Gulf statelet that houses a major U.S. military base, al-Jazeera specializes in peddling wild anti-American, anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, anti-West and anti-semitic conspiracy theories, distortions, and exaggerations, providing a global platform to some of the Arab world’s most hate-filled Islamist propagandists. It magnifies the reach of these fringe ideas through a network of foreign media operations that include Al Jazeera English and the network’s social media arm AJ+ and it builds influence in Washington through a huge DC bureau that reaches out to a to a vast group of past and future public officials whose appearances lend a veneer of credibility to its skewed coverage of US politics and policy.
Turkey’s leading government-funded network, TRT World, has also dramatically expanded its DC presence and brought to Washington the same anti-free speech/anti-free press authoritarian approach to truth, reporting and the media that has been the hallmark of the Erdogan era in Turkey. Once a reputable pillar of independent journalism, TRT World has been accused by such media heavyweights as the Financial Times as being little more than an instrument of pro-regime propaganda.
Even with a White House determined to shrink America’s footprint in the Middle East, the battle for access and influence in Washington matters. How Middle Easterners understand America is an important factor in driving their (and their government’s) views of US policy. And as we have seen, popular animosity to America can factor into Washington’s approach to a country and its regime. Clever governments understand this cycle of influence and use their state-run international media as a tool to advance their interests.
When it comes to Great Power competition, the US government is already wise to the use of international media as a state actor. In the last two years, the Department of Justice registered both CGTN America and RT America under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, requiring these channels to disclose their financial, personnel and other connections with foreign countries. This was part of an effort to prevent propaganda outlets working on behalf of adversarial regimes from attempting to influence the American public. But for the Chinese and Russians, these designations have only been a speed bump. Even with the designations, both CGTN and RT America still have multiple programs broadcasting daily from Washington, abusing our free press to spread malicious lies about their governments while preventing US media from operating freely in their countries. .
As for the Middle Eastern bad actors, requiring TRT World and al-Jazeera to register under FARA would be a useful first step. At the very least, it will put the lie to the claim that these propagandist outlets are examples of quality, independent journalism.
But an even more effective way to cut these channels down to size would be for the media titans in the Middle East – Saudi Arabia and the UAE – to have major state-owned networks invest in spreading a different sort of news from Washington. Al-Arabiya and Sky News Arabia channels currently have tiny bureaus in the capital of the world’s leading superpower and neither broadcasts regular political or analysis shows from DC. Though Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are close security partners with Washington, neither extends that partnership to the realm of media and information, where some of the most consequential strategic battles are being fought.
A small investment by these important regional partners to bulk up their DC presence could go far toward restoring balance to the warped narrative about America and Americans broadcast every day from news bureaus owned and operated by America’s adversaries – bureaus that, ironically, are located just steps from the Capitol, White House and Supreme Court.
