www.upn31.com

Voice of America needs $65 million to bring TV to Middle East

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) The U.S. government's Voice of America needs $65 million to bring TV programming to the Middle East along with its youth music-driven radio shows, its governing board was told Wednesday.

The entity would be called MTN, Mideast Television Network.

``There's a media war going on and we aren't even on the battlefield,'' VOA said in a video that is part of the organization's fund-raising effort to get television programs in the area.

Voice of America's Arabic-language ``Radio Sawa'' began broadcasting in the Middle East on March 23. There is support for the millions needed for television in committees in both houses of Congress, said board member Norm Pattiz. All VOA board members are appointed by the president.

``The mission of international broadcasting is to promote freedom and democracy through the free flow of accurate, reliable and credible news and information about America and the world to audiences overseas,'' he said.

MTN would go up against Arab al-Jazeera, a Qatar-based satellite television news channel that has been criticized by the United States for broadcasting several videos of Osama bin Laden. It also aired exclusive reports from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Pattiz, founder and chairman of the Westwood One radio network, bristled at the suggestion that Voice of America is biased.

``We are not a propaganda organization, we are an organization of journalists,'' he said. ``We wouldn't know how to do propaganda if they asked us to do it.''

(