Public Diplomacy: Reaching Out to Islamic Countries (Exerpt from October 30 Press Briefing)

Question: In the arena of public diplomacy, what can you tell us about the Muslim videos and where they're going to be marketed, if they're going to be marketed?

Mr. Boucher: The videos that we rolled out yesterday in Indonesia are part of a series that we put together to show in various Islamic countries to tell about American Muslims and their life in America, and the values of our society.

It is part of a bigger picture, though, of telling our story overseas, telling our story in many different ways at different levels, telling first basically who we are and what we are about; and this part of America, this aspect of American society, the status of Muslims in America, is one that we find very often is maybe one of the most misunderstood aspects of our society and one of the things that we think is important for us to tell America's story on.

So this is one of the ways we're doing that. We're doing that with web sites. We're doing that with speakers. We're doing that with brochures and information. We're just trying to tell America's story.

We also tell America's story in terms of what we do, the reconstruction of Afghanistan, building schools, children going to school, the kind of aid programs we have, the sewers of Cairo, and various things that we have done with our money, the things that we've actually done.

We also tell our story on the policy level, as well. We've done some, I don't know, it was 500 interviews with Arabic and Muslim media, I think, in the six months after September 11.

So on a number of levels, we have been increasing our outreach to this part of the world, increasing our exchanges, and trying to make this a part of a bigger picture where we tell people a little bit about America.

Question: So these videos will start, what, next week in Indonesia?

Mr. Boucher: They've started to run in Indonesia, and then they will be running in other places. What we have done is sort of set up a sequential rollout. This is one of the first times that we have done something like this, frankly. We have used an advertising firm. We are trying to put together a professional product with some sort of strategic decisions about where and how to use it, but we want to test it as we go along.

So we are going to start in a couple countries, see how it goes -- there will be some pan-Arab media, I think, in the coming days -- try to gauge the reaction, see how it's playing, figure out if there need to be changes in the plan, and then gradually go on to other markets.

Question: (Inaudible) these videos in, say, Egypt and (inaudible)?

Mr. Boucher: Some countries, they -- we've gotten it, some countries we haven't. And as I say, we're going to be on pan-Arab media that get to a lot of different places, as well.

Question: (Inaudible) the source?

Mr. Boucher: I'll see on it. There is a web site that has a lot of the information. It's called -- it's new -- it's called opendialogue.org, and it has a lot of the same information as the videos, and I'll see if I can get you a copy of the video.

Question: Excuse me. What advertising firm did you hire for this and how much are you paying them?

Mr. Boucher: The total bill for all this effort comes -- is going to come to about $15 million. That includes the production aspects of it, the creation of the whole thing from ground zero, and then the placement and purchase of time on the airwaves, and then some of the ancillary events.

And I will have to double check on the firm that we used.

Question: Richard, if I may ask quickly. You said the purchase of time? I mean, in all instances, is this a fact that in all instances the US Government will attempt to purchase time and not to foist, you know, I would say propaganda, or tell other countries' television industries what to put on the air.

Mr. Boucher: Well --

Question: Is it all a matter of advertising, like advertising Coca-Cola?

Mr. Boucher: We decided in this project to try to make sure that these mini-documentaries, these stories got where we wanted them, when we wanted them, to the people we wanted them to get to, and therefore decided that, rather than relying the kindness of strangers, that we would actually go out and try to buy advertising time where we wanted it, when we wanted it, to the people we wanted to hear our story. And so we've done that.

I'm sure if anybody wanted to offer us free time, we would probably be glad to take that, as well.

Question: Richard, who had the final approval on those ads?

Mr. Boucher: Who had the final approval on those ads? Charlotte Beers, I guess. A lot of us saw them, worked on them. I think various other people upstairs previewed them and offered thoughts, but final, you know, Charlotte had the final say-so on it.

Question: When you look in and find out what firm you finally ended up hiring, can you also find out how many other firms bid for this project, and when it was advertised? And also, what countries have refused to accept payment to -- what countries' television stations so far have said no, they will not accept US money to run these ads?

Mr. Boucher: There are countries that are undecided. We will continue to work on this in some places. But, as I said, our own strategy is to look at how is it working in the first couple places, in the first couple placements, and then decide if we need -- where to go next, and we have some general ideas about that.

We have submitted it, in some places, for censorship approval where you need that to get on the air, but we haven't made the purchases in further places because we want to make sure -- we want to decide on our own how to proceed and when and where we want to be.

Question: What countries have you submitted it for censorship procedures?

Mr. Boucher: I --

Question: What's a ballpark number?

Mr. Boucher: No, I --

Question: What's the ballpark number of countries that are undecided right now?

Mr. Boucher: I think we've got -- we know two or three places it's going to run. Did I bring my list with me? No, I didn't. We've got Indonesia first, and then some pan-Arab media during the course of this week, and then I think -- let me remember more accurately. I will get you a list.

And then as far as down the road, since it is not decided where we are going to be, and we have submitted for provisional approval in some places, we'll just -- I'm not prepared to put out a list at this point.

Question: Did you say censorship approval?

Mr. Boucher: Yes. There's censorship boards in some countries if you want to put something on TV.

Question: I thought you were against that.

Mr. Boucher: We're against boycotts and negative boycotts. I don't think that's involved in this situation.

Question: Does the censorship, if you know -- is the (inaudible) --

Mr. Boucher: Can we ask somebody in the --

Question: Can I just finish the point, if I may? Does the censorship involve use it whole or not at all, or is the US willing to eliminate segments that authorities don't think --

Mr. Boucher: I don't think anybody's gotten that far. We haven't asked if they want any modifications, and frankly, we are interested in placing this on TV. I think it's a regular process in some places.

Teri?

Question: My first question is, sort of the division of labor. If Charlotte Beer's job is to come up with these ads, why are you paying another advertising company to come up with the ideas? It just seems like that would be duplication of effort, or I don't understand what her exact role in creating these ads is.

And my second question is: How are you going to decide how they're working? You said, "We'll to see how it's working." A couple weeks? I mean, this is -- these are centuries and epochs-old problems.

Question: I think there's -- yes, they are, and especially when you're trying to address questions at this level.

I mean, what we're talking about here is who we are, what we stand for, what our society is like, trying to tell the story of America and Muslims in America, which is very much misunderstood, we think, in Muslim countries.

And so, what you're trying to do here is just show people who we are and get some receptivity to the other levels of dialogue, of telling them our views and what we do, so that is a long-term thing. But I think you can gage sort of initial reaction from newspapers, people we talk to, statements that are made, and just trying to get an idea of how it's playing as we go forward.

I don't think it's -- no, we're not going to wait for 20 years of opinion polling to see if we've changed attitudes, but we should be able to gage some kind of reaction as we go forward in a sequential thing that would be maybe a couple days or a week between different countries.

On that, Charlotte Beers, indeed, came to us from the advertising world and knows an awful lot about the advertising world, but I think when he was chairman of a major advertising firm she didn't draw the drawings and make the film. And we needed, wanted, people who could conduct some of the research, help us draw the drawings, make the film, design it, recruit it, produce it, in a professional manner. And that's why we contracted outside for those services.

Question: None of this came out of her budget? What was it, $2 million to start with, I think, is what we first heard about?

Mr. Boucher: It comes out of our overall Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy budget. I think the money was actually allocated to my bureau and we made the contract.

Sir.

Question: Thank you, Richard.

Question: One more on this?

Mr. Boucher: Okay, we're going to stay on this for a little while, then we'll keep going. We'll keep going back, if we can.

Question: Richard, what is the evidence that the US believes that's it's misunderstood, that the way that Americans live is misunderstood? Because when you talk to people in the region, it's not really Americans that they're questioning; it's the government's policies that they have problems with.

So why is it that you all feel you need to explain how Muslims are treated in this country?

Mr. Boucher: I keep reading these press reports and watching 60 Minutes and shows like that about how terribly misunderstood we are in the Arab street. I thought it was kind of obvious. I didn't bring all the data, but there's been a lot of polling done and especially when you go beyond the elites who study here, do business here, travel here, there's a lot of basic misperception about this country and especially about whether people are free to practice their religion if they are Muslim. And that's one of the elements that we want to try to explain, what kind of society we are and how we treat people and what we think of people.

And that's, I think, very basic to understanding and to listening to the kind of policy arguments we want to make, as well.

Question: But does the US believe that by convincing these radical Islamists that the US is tolerant of Islam, that that's going to stop the suicide bombings?

Mr. Boucher: I don't think these ads are going to stop suicide bombers. I know that there are an awful lot of people, though, who need to know more about the United States. What they think they know about the United States is based on distorted images and rumor and common belief that may not be true; and that it's good for us to tell them our story directly, and that's what we're trying to do.

Question: How long do you expect these ads to be running in these -- in each country?

Mr. Boucher: The goal was to use the period of Ramadan to play these ads because there's, I guess, a tradition of people telling the story of Islam in their country during the month of Ramadan. And so we want to begin that dialogue over several weeks. We can modify it and adapt it beyond that as we decide to go forward.

Question: Can you also tell me how long these ads have been in production?

Mr. Boucher: How long these ads have been in production? I think I first saw the sort of mockups late spring, so we've been working on it, you know, most of the year, shall we say. I'm not exactly sure when we signed the contract and formally said okay, we're going to do this.

The gentleman next to you.

Question: Yes. First of all, when you say pan-Arab media, are you talking about al-Jazeera? Is that the media you're talking about?

Mr. Boucher: No, it's not al-Jazeera. It's other satellite broadcasters.

Question: Are you going to use this on al-Jazeera?

Mr. Boucher: No.

Question: Why not?

Mr. Boucher: They wanted too much money.

(Laughter.)

Question: Is there concern in the State Department that relations with Canada are being strained by the implementation of --

Mr. Boucher: I think let us finish with one topic and then we'll come back to you after we move to him.

Eli.

Question: As I take it, one of the goals of this ad campaign is to convince a lot of Muslims that this is a country tolerant of Muslims. Do you think that that message might be contradicted by the State Department's own policy of screening so many Arab and Muslim males in a number of these countries that was implemented almost a year ago? And can you see potentially how literal policies that would affect a lot of these folks might be undercut by --

Mr. Boucher: It sort of goes back to the question of what's the relationship between this kind of telling the story of America versus the issues that people have with some of our policies. The fact is we make policy because it is good policy, we make policy because we need to keep America safe, and we make our visa policy because we have to have more stringent scrutiny of people who come into this country and what they might be intending to do.

At the same time, as we try to explain that, you need to have -- I put it usually in terms of receptivity. You have to have a certain fertile ground on which you lay -- to put out your policy, to try to explain things. And that's where you really, I think if you look at the polling and you look at the work that's been done, the focus groups and newspaper stories that have been written in this country, you see that there are a lot of people that just don't listen or don't think that what the United States is saying is true because they have -- they think we're a Godless society, they think all kinds of other things about us.

And getting out, telling the story of America, is trying to create that basis on which we can have a dialogue and discussion of policy where we know people don't disagree with us, but at least they shouldn't mistrust our intentions and our nature, and where we want people to understand that we need to keep this country safe.

We had others in the second and third row.

Question: Obviously, you don't think this is going to stop suicide bombings, as you mentioned, but do you see this as a hearts and mind component to the war on terror? I mean, you're kind of talking about the program. Is it part and parcel of that effort?

Mr. Boucher: Yes, it is part of the overall picture of the United States. We want people to have a more realistic picture of the United States. So whether we are talking about visa policy or the war on terror or trying to get Iraqi compliance with UN resolutions, we have a better basis for conducting that dialogue on policy issues.

Question: Did you get any support or advice or ideas from any Muslim organizations or religious people during the --

Mr. Boucher: If you look on the website, opendialogue.org, you will see that that is done in conjunction with an American Muslim organization called the Council of American Muslims for Understanding. This is a group that was launched earlier this year, in May 2002. It's a non-profit, non-partisan, and non-political organization that is dedicated to providing a better understanding of Islam in America to the people in the United States and throughout the world.

So they were a group that came together, I think, after the tragedies of September 11th, that thought it was important to tell the story of Muslims in America. This is one aspect, as I said, of the bigger picture of our telling America's story, and in this aspect, we found that they were good to cooperate with.

So we've been doing a lot of this with those people, and put together the website together, because we're trying to tell the same story.

Question: Richard, do these advertisements address in any way the policy concerns of Muslims, like, for example, US policy towards Palestine, Iraq, support for autocratic regimes in the Middle East, and so on; or is it solely how Muslims live in the United States?

And presumably, you did some surveys before you set about this task, and did those surveys produce any information about the roots of anti-American sentiment and how that is separated between this perception of how Muslims live in the States and policy, these policy concerns?

Mr. Boucher: Have I mentioned that this is part of a bigger picture? This is part of a bigger picture. This is one aspect of telling America's story on a particular part of American life. A lot of other things we do to tell America's story. A lot of other things we do to tell America's achievements, both in the United States and overseas for people. A lot of things we do with supporting journalism, supporting TV documentaries, news stories from around the world to talk about America, and also to talk about our policies.

And there's a lot of things we do in putting forward directly our views on policy to people, whether it's in websites, brochures, interviews, op-eds by our ambassadors, or whatever.

So this is a piece of a piece of a bigger picture, and that's why, no, these particular items do not, nor does -- nor do my briefings here particularly address some of the issues that are addressed in these, in these documentaries, mini-documentaries I guess we're calling them.

And the other part of your question, I can't remember, if there was one. Okay.

Question: One quick question, just so I understand. $15 million to be spent over a month -- is the media being negotiated by McCann-Erickson or is the State Department negotiating directly in terms of what's taking place?

And if it's -- depending on what you determine and whether it's successful or not, what will happen from here on out? Is there going to be additional advertising that takes place if you see this is successful?

Mr. Boucher: The answer is, I think, as with most corporations or anybody else who hires an advertising firm, is the firm, I think, actually makes the buy, but we decide where we want to be and when, and so they will do that for us, because they have the contract to do it for us.

As far as what we do, you know, beyond the initial month, that's something we'll have to see. We have contracted for the creation and production of these things, and their placement, and then we'll go on from there, but going on from there is not really decided at this point.

Question: Is there money in your budget to spend for additional advertising?

Mr. Boucher: This additional money will cover probably more than just what it -- now that we've done the production and creation of these things, we have them. I think we have enough money not just to place them for the first month, but to go on from there, but we haven't exactly decided how to do that.