al jazeera is winning. the russians have opened up an english language network i've seen it in a few countries and it's quite instructive. the war of the words begins or has already been long in action all a top u.s. official is now drawing new battle lines in the war of information. and since the international media seems to be winning band war the us starts its bid to catch up and get down to crow about its best act so what exactly is that place and. what so problematic with what the f.b.i. is it is that it came in and destroyed the community cohesion it destroyed the

functionality of a community and because of that claim the a.c.l.u. and care are launching a lawsuit against the f.b.i. here how one american muslim community says it was unfairly targeted and even tracked as if it's religion. it's a thursday march third five pm in washington d.c. and christine for is out there watching our t.v. . it's the war of the words and according to secretary of state hillary clinton the u.s. is losing losing to whom you may ask well according to her really losing to international media like al-jazeera and yes even our team is a far cry from the good old days the good old days according to many in the cold war when the u.s. won the war because they simply have the best message and it is a context

a look inside a message machine. war declared the us is now officially in an information battle with foreign media which provide alternative views on world news views which often running contrast to the coverage of events by the us mainstream media we are in an information war and we are losing that war i'll be very blunt in my assessment al jazeera is winning. the chinese have opened up a global english language and multi language television network the russians have opened up an english language network i've seen it in a few countries and it's quite instructive we are cutting back the b.b.c. is cutting back some five years ago western media outlets including c.b.c. and c.n.n. had a near monopoly in the coverage of world news things have changed since then more and more viewers across the world tuning in to various foreign media to get a fresh take on events clearly the united states feels on the defensive in part

because we can no longer monopolize not only the terms of you know the soroti in these countries but also the terms of the there's other information out there are other points of view and those points of view are profoundly damaging to a country that believes that its point of view is the only point of view or should be the only point of view r.t. presence on you tube is one example almost three hundred million views as opposed to c.n.n. that has around three million r.t.s. constantly growing audience is already an indication to many that the days of media monopoly are over and people demanded more people or approach to news in the real commitment to the kind of freedom of the universe speech that we really need if we're going to be in a democracy at home and in a you know a community of nations overseas is to many hillary clinton speech a few weeks ago on freedom of internet seemed contradictory to the treatment that

sources like we can leaks are getting us legislators are now crafting a law that would give the administration increased flexibility to go after weak elites and the likes and now the administration is seeking more funding to step up u.s. propaganda efforts abroad during the cold war we did a great job in getting america's message out after the berlin wall fell we said ok fine and after that you know we. we're done and unfortunately we are paying a big price for it but many say the lack of funding is not the reason why u.s. media are unpopular among world audience the u.s. is losing it has been for years losing popularity and respect around the world but that's not a result of its failures in media communications it's a result of u.s. foreign policy last year the head of the agency that manages the us government run international got counseling asked for more money for his the carpet we can't allow

ourselves to be out community by our enemies police the enemies included russia china iran and venezuela walter isaacson the head of the agency which runs woods of america among other media outlets later backtracked on this statement isaacson's page for more funding seemed even more unconvincing considering he's agency has a budget of seven hundred fifty million dollars and it's way more than the budget of r t iran's press t.v. and venezuela's tell us we're combining probably money alone can't provide global walter isaacson's speech last year sent quite a hostile message to foreign media exposing shortcomings in the us means three separate clinton statements made the push for the us is fighting a global information war and i'm going to stop our reporting from washington r.t. . all right so now that making an impression at the highest level certainly there are some interesting shall we say impressions of this country i thought this was interesting here secretary clinton on one hand. talking about

a run in that she had with an afghan man take a listen the only thing he thought about americans is that all the men wrestled and the women walked around a bikini speakers the only t.v. ever saw was baywatch and worldwide wrestling. times amp up the masses i guess chris chambers is a professor at georgetown university and joins us now for more on this. let's talk about this chris secretary of clinton obviously fighting for more funding coming out and kind of making the case for why she should get it and she says that we are quote in an information war but it's interesting she wants more money than afghanistan and her reports this network and to other networks and buying talk about this well. on the one hand it's very complex on the other hand it's not you heard it talk about the afghan general that is a metaphor for what's really going on here the corporatization don't mess to clean up american news has basically thrown out the whole need for newsgathering and real

reporting in exchange for punditry and entertainment and sensationalism because that's going to deliver the demographics to the guys who pay for the commercials well that has a spillover effect you have reality t.v. and baywatch and all that kind of crap going overseas you also have no one on the ground in american private networks you know basically linking up with local people finding the real stories so it's all one two punch and that is what's undercutting or message abroad which is a good message it always has been but now it's fallen apart it's basically commercialism and bikini's and then you know accurate totally non factual news reporting and basically jingoism if you look at some networks like fuck so that's basically the downfall right there and let's just replay also what she said we sat in the report but she's very clear about who is winning this information war

al-jazeera is winning. the chinese have opened up a global english language and multi language television network the russians have opened up an english language network i've seen it in a few countries and it's quite instructive. all right so this is not an attempt by secretary clinton to pat us on the back or anything it's a good shout out there happy that we're making an impression hopefully she's watching our point is that she wants more money she is using networks like al-jazeera r.t. in the chinese language network to say hey if we don't and but they're going to surpass us if they have already talk about these sort of mixed messages it is it's really you know on one level because you can't the amount of money we're talking about she could literally set up an entire. voice for america on steroids a real state run news network she's not that's not what's going to happen they're

going to try to go into these countries and probably try to buy news basically a true propaganda arm rather than a news gathering and reporting which is what orci al-jazeera and the chinese network are going to be yes they're going to have their messages but they're real news networks they're pretty much where c.b.s. a.b.c. n.b.c. were thirty years ago before things fell apart and record. you can't do that you know if she's going to build a voice for america that's like the old c.b.s. with walter cronkite and she's going to have to get people on the ground she's going to have to connect with people and their problems and what their aspirations are and the crisis that's not what she wants the money for it's a true propaganda message creating machine she wants millions and billions for p.r. not for news or accused provide the news and that's what they have to understand there's a difference and that's where we lose losing this war i thought i thought it was interesting that she sort of had a timeline for when the u.s.

sort of shifted into the losing side of this rain after the berlin wall that we throw our hands up and we start caring about that talk about this i mean what has happened since the fall of the berlin wall to now that has really shaped the war of the words well basically it that's around the time. when c.n.n. was ascendant and you had the twenty four hour news cycle but then it kind of clear total little bit because they're now ready start to see how much money you can make in the media all kinds of other people start to get into a lot domestically and it became an entertainment product c.n.n. is you know star kind of dive foxes and other networks took off because it was about confrontation you know analysis if you want to call it the real really battling pundits and having a political message so that news coverage dives the other type starts to rise the entertainment model the economy starts to go south we're talking about

a pretty wide timeline from lady lady eighty's to now but that's what's going on so of course you know there's not going to be anybody on the ground people are pulling back their foreign bureaus because there's no money in it you have to satisfy stockholders who want to see immediate payoff that's what's going on in the united states other countries don't have that problem so they can fill in the gap and i mean a gap even domestically people in this country watching our t.v. watching are al-jazeera specifically of course for the unrest in the middle east so really what's happening is we've opened up these huge gaps because we're more concerned with reality t.v. and people arguing and people attacking the president than we are with having people on the ground finding out what the prompter problems are and when you do that you can produce a product that people here and around the world are going to respect it's interesting that you very rarely hear the word public service affiliated with news and we should remind people there certainly are government funded channels here in the united states that are actually rather than their broadcast around the world

the problem is the audiences are dwindling if nothing coming close to making an impact that it's not like. i see israel in for it has more on whether or not u.s. funded media is still there when in fact. since one thousand nine hundred. the u.s. has broadcasted its closure and politics around the world. out of the great. transmitting in over fifty languages to the tune of seven hundred forty five point five million dollars per year but what happens when people just start tuning out more and more u.s. funded media outlets designed to promote america's image abroad are channels in search of an audience but taxpayers are still footing the bill. america has sunk one billion dollars into al huda and arabic language news network

authors professor bill sievert says the network's model is stuck in the past when american news was welcomed by some competition in. the arab world dominated by zero zero. that there really isn't much of an audience outside of the right. fifty three percent watch al-jazeera only half a percent of pair of viewers watch out for that which is broadcast from suburban springfield virginia its credibility. the arab audience for the most or all stickier about themselves from other arabs critics say that from day one there was a major disconnect executives who didn't speak arabic staffing the network with lebanese christians to broadcast to its overwhelmingly muslim audience. and it audience that associates a channel with the u.s. the architects of the iraq war soon a new television service will begin providing reliable news and information across

the region and supporter of unpopular and repressive regimes throughout the middle east but even now what has small viewership is a lofty goal for another u.s. network kevin martin would. be watching. for twenty six years rather when david. we have fallen on deaf ears in cuba says cuban journalist my lean alone so chunk. it's hard to talk about the impact of radio and t.v. marti because on television it's not seen on the radio it's practically unheard of and on top of that in cuba the signal is generally congressional reports point out the miami based channels quote failure over many years to adhere to generally accepted journalistic standards i'm looking but i'm not talking about a radio show that tells people to go and show human leaders from the point of view of journalistic ethics it's very troubling to me it had a fifteen million dollars budget in two thousand and eight to pay cuban dissidents on the island of the to reporters and rent fuel and fly to gold chain planes that

circle the island to broadcast to the marquee and the u.s. isn't just paying for new u.s. state department dollars also financed egal for an afghan police drama former marine j. dilla verso says shows like this send a subconscious message to support the military support the police force in this sort of thing and in many ways it does on a broad scale with twenty four dead here in the united states ten years into the u.s. war in afghanistan deliberative says forty five percent of the media is run by rupert murdoch's news corp. creators of twenty four a series designed to drum up support for the war on terror in the u.s. twenty four was also created to support the doctrine of torture much of much of eagle force propaganda instead of afghanistan's trying to mimic that trying to say that confronting insurgents and confronting terrorists and what is is

a good thing and afghans you support but what's on screen in afghanistan contrasts with the reality all scream with little sign of afghan support with a staggering one point four trillion dollar deficit at home and propose cuts in everything from medicaid to education so americans are saying that we should switch off international broadcasting and let the rest of the world watch what they would be watching anyway keelan ford r.t. washington d.c. . so clearly it's not that there's not money being spent not like there are not channels out there at the end of the day it seems that propaganda matters for money or influence and i'm wondering pres if you think that most americans realize that oh i think so i mean we try to tell our students you know journalistic standards ethics to be nimble and understand how the world and how the industry is changing what our students are experiencing or what ordinary americans are experiencing is it joe mystically there's

a line between news and propaganda has been wiped out but what we don't tell them also is that beyond our borders there is a hunger for news because this is where the action is and they want to see people on the ground connecting and we try to teach them to connect find the story be accurate you know if you want to have a point of view fine but your creed is to go after the truth you know how you package it after that that's that's something for the producers but you need to go for the truth and connect with the people on the ground we don't do that here and if we're not going to do it you know overseas of course people are going to throw it back in our faces and all the money in the world is not going to fix that and even if you're going to especially going to use that money to pay people to drum up some kind of phony stories fake t.v. shows it's not going to work because people are not going to accept it not because they're smarter than anybody else because it's they can't relate to it i want to get your take on how this has changed since in the last ten years since the wars

have broken out for the first time we've really gone kind of big in terms of embedded reporters and of course if you're a reporter and you're reporting on people whose duty it is among other things to make sure that you stay alive it seems a little difficult to think that you would be able to be totally fair and you know when reporting on this what do you tell your students about this concept about the difference between war reporting. betted with these troops that verse is going out and doing it a lot well it's one of the first what i tell them is that there was never a time where people were really a loony in their term imbed it came about with the afghanistan war and it was a reaction to vietnam but the reason they had to react in vietnam was as a people were imbedded in vietnam they just didn't call it that but what they saw was you know astronomically wasteful or borderline war crimes or totally divergent to what the purpose was whatever the purpose was that week so basically

the reporters were doing their job in vietnam they were doing their job on the beaches in d.-day when they came ashore with the troops and if they had something that was sensitive sometimes and did can censor but it but there was a there was a but weight of looking and saying look this is the story this is the truth well we have now it was a p.r. move we would invent that term in bed and that really locks the reporter into the war reporting and almost sets it up so everything's going to be favorable because you don't want to disappoint these guys or these girls that you've been in the hole in the foxhole with we've been in this convoy with and seen them bleeding so that connection also has been there since the civil war they've added this extra layer of almost forced loyalty this real briefly chris your take on what we expect to see especially in terms of the state run media from the u.s. in the next few years well you know they don't we don't like the term state run here but i mean it's going i don't think it's going to be you know that's an

ideological thing but i don't think it's going to be anything that's going to address what hillary clinton's talking about i think the lead of our audience is going to continue as long as we continue to present this kind of corporate media entertainment face to the world. professor at georgetown university. well a group of muslims in southern california claim they've been unfairly targeted because of their religion now they're taking on the f.b.i. with a new lawsuit which they hope exposes some huge violations of the constitution artie's were among the lindo shows us how a paid informant is causing concern about the government's tactics in the war on terror. as american muslim prepare for prayers at the remains that the worshiper next to them by all. this is especially true in

southern california where paid again formants have fractured the cohesiveness of a law abiding community i'm fearful of retaliation. and my wife fears that my family fears it and i fear that. you know the f.b.i. is going to come down pretty aggressive. after i'll email you found out he was being spied on he felt betrayed by his country and now he feels alienated because fellow muslims are now suspicious that he might be a spy the twenty six year old southern california native was approached by f.b.i. informant craig months he'll presumably because of his devout muslim faith now the a.c.l.u. and the council of american islamic relations are teaming up against the f.b.i. suing the agency for what they say is its attempt to incriminate people based simply on where they prey something they consider of by a lation of the u.s. first amendment freedom of religious worship the f.b.i.

insists that it doesn't ask it's important to target people for their religious affiliations something muslims are finding it hard to believe this is one of the mosques where maggio came to pray and socialize with other muslims it was during a car right here that he started making some very suspicious comments that said. off alarms and local community members reported it to the f.b.i. little did they know that the f.b.i. was actually paying months he'll to watch then he was always interested in. other topics in jihad and what i thought about. things of that nature once his cover was blown it was revealed that mantilla was paid one hundred seventy seven thousand dollars over ten months to collect personal information on hundreds of muslims even though there was no suspicion of them committing any crime the case is eroding the already shaky relationship between the f.b.i.

and the brother in law abiding muslim community is extremely ironic and sad but here in america today we have to stand up here to challenge. a government agency those thinking us but. and to a time when people feel that we're living in a police state told the media that his handlers tried to instill in him that islam is a threat to our national security but so problematic with what the f.b.i. is that it came in and destroyed the community cohesion it destroyed the functionality of a community that would be f.b.i.'s best ally in protecting this nation's security and we want to do that because we this is our land we have no other yet mission also raises concerns about the government's attitudes towards muslims historically if you look at the situation states fifty's groups religious groups ethnic groups are always targeted because of their their faith their ethnicity but the japanese

during world war two but i stand by what i said all day long muslims killed us on nine eleven and there is a huge muslim problem in the world if you are an eighteen to twenty year old. you should be strip searched for must work out for islamic terrorists in our country for the for the very few muslims and for to cooperate with police as many politicians and pundits continue to portray muslim communities as american breeding grounds for terrorists the f.b.i. has a lot of work to convert these american sense of alienation to one of trust. a lot of dead. archie i mean just imagine the numbers of this community say they are constantly looking over their shoulders any time a new person enters their mosque and it's not just here but this is going on the fear and distrust is spreading and joining me now to talk more about this is our of the lou executive director of care and san francisco and our let's talk first specifically about this case f.b.i.

informants inside a place of worship simply because of who this religious group was worshipping i mean i find it interesting so often we talk about you know reaching out across the world to our muslim brother and but this is the case this case is an example of us here in this country not even being able to respect american muslims what do you think about all this earth for me thank you for having me on fox about this lawsuit if you truly think that this is happening and this is the surveillance that we're seeing occurring in the muslim community particularly because it undermines the trust between american muslims and marne or american muslims should be partners in fighting them and treating them like undermined entirely. i want to talk about a couple different cases here. first the less they stay with this case here in the mosque what was your reaction when you found out about it and you know what was the

reaction of the people there was this shocking or was this sort of expected. it was appalling and mean we know a story during the clinton era where this type of informant that he was happening and i'm actually in real time was incredibly frightening the socket on which i'm into the community and try to earn the trust our community members is the only you turning over personal information and aggravating the relationship i simply problematic and. undermine the ability of the congress to trust you. totally i want to turn now to a case going on in new jersey two men there u.s. citizens have pled pleaded guilty to conspiring to murder people outside the u.s. by joining us somali terrorist group with ties to al qaeda but there's more to the story here these two men apparently have been followed by the f.b.i. since two thousand and six the f.b.i. recorded them saying some pretty shocking stuff about their desires to kill but

their attorney argued you know these were just kids talking what's your take on this case. i'm not familiar with this case but what i have seen around all oh. so often. relational her and take some operational stars is the job of the. cast was. not. able individuals who are just. another case also that's getting some attention not sure if you're familiar with this one a former british airways computer expert found guilty of conspiring to blow up a plane we're talking about a man named rajiv karim and reports say he hoped that he could exploit airline strikes to become cabin crew and then cause an explosion on a u.s. bound flights you touched upon this a little bit but talk about cases like this as you say where people sort of have an

idea and the f.b.i. gets in there and sort of you know there's no other way to say it this is in some cases at least not specifically this one but it could be entrapment. right and that's very much the concern and the response to the entrapment allegation you know it doesn't fit the tactical legal definition because it is a very crude but again what we're seeing over and over again. was ideas and then given the tools and the various you carry out and then hurt in reality it was. rated very large role in creating the terrorists i've got to bring this up if the f.b.i. had gone into this mosque we would be having a different discussion today if they had in fact found you know people that legitimately were planning something so it's really difficult when you when you do it because they you know the f.b.i. goes in and they say oh we found these people this is

a case where obviously they didn't sound find anybody want to you think the f.b.i. needs to do differently to continue with their mission of trying to find people who are actually. plotting something they're going to need to work to restore the trust between the age of the unity what was. really undermined the trust american will. wind up in. preventing terrorist studies have shown that the more religious than individual is arrest likely already engaged in terrorism but also that americans i mean again are we really are or. this is our home and that was our a blue executive director of care in san francisco i'm not going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to our to dot com slash usa and check out our youtube page youtube dot com slash r t america and christine for that i will be back in an hour and a half.