Having faced an uphill battle in the U.S. cable TV market since its English-service founding in 2006, Al Jazeera announced yesterday it will acquire Current TV, a basically defunct channel founded by a group of business partners including Al Gore. Up until now the Qatar-based news organization has only been broadcasted on the cable networks in a handful of U.S. cities. Having initially been thought of by many Americans as a network of propaganda, Al Jazeera has gained a new following and credibility in the United States thanks to its detailed coverage of the Arab Spring.
Most Americans first heard of Al Jazeera in 2001 when it became infamous for broadcasting several Osama bin Laden speeches. At that time the George W. Bush administration was publicly hostile towards the network, and the U.S. military destroyed the network’s broadcast center in Kabul, Afghanistan with a missile in the 2002 invasion, and its Baghdad office was bombed in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, killing an Al Jazeera journalist.
Prior to Wednesday’s announcement Al Jazeera had sought a place in the U.S. market, but political and commercial factors kept most cable companies from carrying the network. The Bush administration would have looked unfavorably at such a development and it was feared Americans would boycott or simply turn off Al Jazeera programming. Thanks to the more favorable Obama administration and the network’s coverage of the Arab Spring this perception has changed and Al Jazeera is seen to have come into its own as a respected main stream news outlet. During coverage of the Egyptian uprisings, internet traffic increased 2,500% on its website, with half of that figure being attributed to viewers in the United States who could not watch Al Jazeera coverage on their regular TV networks.
As of 2009 Al Jazeera English was available in every major European market and has been noted for its absence in the United States. Its presenters and reporters come from many well-known networks including the BBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS.
In the past Al Jazeera has received criticism for having an anti-American and anti-Israeli bias, more so in its Arabic broadcasts than Al Jazeera English. It has also been criticized for being soft on its coverage of protests in Bahrain, accused of holding a double standard compared with its coverage of the current Syrian civil war, as well as being overly sympathetic to its home-country royal financiers in Qatar.
Anyone who has seen the documentary about the the First Gulf War and Al Jazeera, “Control Room,” will remember the U.S. Central Command Spokesperson Josh Rushing and his good-natured debates with other Al Jazeera journalists. Ironically a few years later Rushing quit his military job and joined the Al Jazeera English service, going on to gain a popular following with his program Fault Lines.
Al Jazeera has said it plans to create a new channel based in New York tentatively called Al Jazeera America, with 40 percent of its programming coming from Al Jazeera English and the other 60 percent being produced in the United States.
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