Al Jazeera's (Global) Mission

The U.S. government initially supported these fledgling efforts at free speech, banking on their transformative potential in societies that had been in informational lockdown for decades. But it soon discovered that free speech meant a license to vent all kinds of news unflattering--if not downright hostile--to our various adventures. U.S. forces actually bombed Al Jazeera bureaus twice, once in Kabul and once in Baghdad, where a reporter was killed; both times, the United States insisted the bombings were accidental. In April 2004, according to British press reports, President Bush considered bombing Al Jazeera's headquarters in Qatar, until British prime minister Tony Blair talked him off the ledge. At the height of the Iraq conflict, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld called Al Jazeera's reporting "vicious, inaccurate, and inexcusable."

Ours isn't the only government to be exasperated by Al Jazeera. Its impertinent broadcasts have gotten it tossed out of Algeria, Bahrain, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Tunisia, among other countries. The only place in the region where it hasn't yet been banned is Israel, despite routinely airing commentary that is brutally anti-Semitic.

As noxious as it found Al Jazeera's message, however, the Bush administration couldn't help but see its power, and in early 2004, it launched its own channel, Al Hurra, as a Muslim-run, pro-American counterpoint. But the station faced deep skepticism from the public and never found much of an audience. It is currently under investigation for various financial shenanigans.

That has left the Bush administration to try to shape public opinion through news channels it can't control. And indeed, State Department public diplomacy chief Karen Hughes has since appeared on Al Jazeera, as have secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and even Rumsfeld. That's as it should be, says Marc Lynch, a political science professor at Williams College and author of Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, Al Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today. "Though no friend of U.S. foreign policy," he says, Al Jazeera "is perhaps the single most powerful ally America can have in pursuit of democratic change in the Middle East."

It's early January, and Cathy Rasenberger, a grizzled cable-industry consultant, is hosting a media lunch for her client at her Chrysler Building offices in Manhattan. On the agenda: an update on Al Jazeera's progress in securing U.S. distribution deals. The star of the meet-and-greet is Lindsey Oliver, a pleasant British barrister who could easily pass for headmistress at a girls' school. Rushing is at her side, but this is Oliver's show, a chance to get the word out that Al Jazeera is coming to town.

Oliver may have the toughest job in show business: As Al Jazeera's commercial director, she's responsible for finding a home for the channel on airwaves or broadband around the globe. But while she's perky and positive about the channel's progress, there's precious little news. No U.S. distribution deals have been signed, although many are reportedly "pending"; meanwhile, the launch date has slipped from its March target to sometime in "late spring." There have been a couple of high-profile hires--Nightline's Marash, and Mark Seddon from the UK's Tribune to cover the United Nations--but details on even Rushing's precise on-air role are still under wraps.

Oliver says not to worry. Things are going well enough in the rest of the world that she's anticipating reaching 30 million to 40 million viewers from the get-go. And she's cocky enough about the channel's prospects in the Unites States to have turned down a slot on one cable company's Arabic tier in the hope of something more mainstream. The problem, she insists, is lack of bandwidth, an issue that affects anybody looking for distribution in a tight market.

Still, AJI faces hurdles that, say, Al Gore's new cable channel, Current, didn't. As one young reporter attending the lunch observed, "Most networks don't have to go and explain first that they don't do beheadings."

At that, Oliver stifles her exasperation and patiently explains that even the old Al Jazeera never showed a beheading and never would. But she concedes that, in America, it's a misperception that's lodged in the public psyche as firmly as the belief that Saddam was behind September 11. And it surely wasn't helped by the latest string of hostage videotapes--each branded with Al Jazeera's filigreed logo.

So, even assuming there's space on the dial for AJI, it still looks like a pretty tough sell to the cable companies, says Simon Applebaum, editor at large of CableWORLD magazine. "One of the things [AJI has] to deal with is whether cable operators are going to want to take a chance on being associated with a very controversial channel at a very volatile time in the Mideast." We called a number of them--Comcast, RCN, Verizon, Time Warner, among others--to ask just that. None returned our calls.