Al-Jazeera is in discussions with Comcast, the US largest cable operator, about bringing the network’s English-language channel to millions of U.S. homes, the Qatar-based news service said Tuesday.
Al-Jazeera hopes to capitalize on its growing reputation as a serious provider of top-quality journalism from an increasingly tumultuous Middle East. The Comcast meeting was the first move in a new push by Al-Jazeera to get on U.S. cable systems, which have been reluctant to carry the Qatar-based news network. It’s quite a turn of events for Al-Jazeera, which until its widely praised coverage of the unrest in Egypt was something of a pariah in the United States.
During the Iraq War, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld branded the network’s reporting of civilian casualties as “vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable.” Now, the White House is watching Al-Jazeera alongside CNN. Al-Jazeera, which has more journalists in the Middle East than any U.S. news agency, was repeatedly cited by MSNBC and CNN even before the network offered its content to other outlets through a Creative Commons license.
The treatment of Al-Jazeera’s reporters by security forces in Egypt and Libya added credence to the network’s claim of independence. Al-Jazeera, which is Arabic for “the island,” is currently not available on any major U.S. cable system, but Al-Jazeera English is streamed live on the web, for free.
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