When a US military helicopter began spraying bullets into a crowd of civilians in Baghdad, believed to be looting an Army armoured vehicle, most Arab news channels aired a video of the scene that captured the last words of a journalist killed in the attack. ‘‘Please help me. I am dying,’’ pleaded Mazin Tumaisi.His network, Al-Arabiya, showed the footage again and again, as did Al-Jazeera. Alhurra TV, however, deemed the video too disturbing to air. The story could be told without such graphic images, news directors for the new US government-funded network concluded.Editors at US news channels routinely decide that some images are too graphic to air. But to critics and competitors of Alhurra, its decision was evidence that the network airs US propaganda.Alhurra, a network with 150 reporters based in Springfield is the US’ largest and most expensive effort to sway foreign opinion over the airwaves since the Voice of America in 1942. The 24-hour channel, which started in February, airs two daily hour-long newscasts besides other programmes.Khalid Disher, 24, a shopowner in Baghdad, likes Alhurra. ‘‘Their news covers everything, the good and the bad.’’ Others are suspicious. ‘‘I know this channel is funded by the US Congress,’’ said another shopowner. ‘‘The Americans want their interests to be achieved.’’ Mouafac Harb, Alhurra’s news director, bristles at the notion. ‘‘We’re state-funded, but not state-run,’’ Harb said.In March, when Israeli missiles killed Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin, most Arab channels switched immediately to the story. Alhurra continued with its regular cooking show. Detractors immediately pounced on that.Some West Asia experts assert that the assumption under which Alhurra was created — that existing Arab news stations contribute to disdain for the US — is flawed. ‘‘Managers of Alhurra have stigmatised the competition and stereotyped it as being totally anti-US, and that’s not true,’’ said Bill Rugh, a former US ambassador to UAE. —LAT-WP
