A Tentative Thumbs-Up for Al Jazeera's English-Language Channel

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"If you briefly clicked by Al Jazeera International on television, you might mistake it for the BBC," the Project for Excellence in Journalism's Dante Chinni writes, citing AJI's "understated, clean graphics," "more-global view of the news," and its anchors' British accents. But AJI has "an Arab voice" and trumpets its "fearless journalism." "In a story the channel did about its own launch ... it happily pointed out that everyone criticizes Al Jazeera. The piece included clips of Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi officials saying Al Jazeera is spreading US propaganda, juxtaposed against soon-to-be-former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld calling the channel 'irresponsible.'" Chinni notes that when "a Lebanese cabinet minister was assassinated, and Syria renewed diplomatic relations with Iraq," AJI viewers had already been presented with "the broader news context of these regional events." It's too early to determine whether AJI will be "a mouthpiece for anti-American propaganda," he concludes. But it does "offer more in-depth coverage of the Middle East than anything else most Americans are going to see."