© 2025 WFAE

Mailing Address:
WFAE 90.7
P.O. Box 896890
Charlotte, NC 28289-6890
Tax ID: 56-1803808
90.7 Charlotte 93.7 Southern Pines 90.3 Hickory 106.1 Laurinburg
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Live from Virginia, It's Alhurra

Alhurra anchors Katya Wakim and Fadi Shahwan. The 24-hour news channel is broadcast entirely in Arabic.
Susan Stone, NPR News /
Alhurra anchors Katya Wakim and Fadi Shahwan. The 24-hour news channel is broadcast entirely in Arabic.

In the suburbs of Washington, D.C., workers have nearly finished building what they hope will be a bridge to the Middle East. It's a studio for a new American-run television news channel, based in Springfield, Va., that will broadcast by satellite to all 22 countries of the Arab world.

Alhurra, which is Arabic for "The Free One," is designed to provide an antidote to what its founders consider anti-American news coverage on popular Arabic channels such as al-Jazeera. On a recent visit to the studio, NPR's Steve Inskeep found the predominantly Arab staff working to prepare the channel's first broadcast, set for launch on Feb. 14.

The new Arab language channel is a product of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a U.S. government board that also oversees the Voice of America broadcasts. The board has invested $62 million into Alhurra. Part of the channel's main mission is to encourage democracy in the Middle East -- and change an Arab public opinion that has turned sharply against the United States.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Tags
United States & World Morning EditionAll Things Considered
Steve Inskeep is a host of NPR's Morning Edition, as well as NPR's morning news podcast Up First.