The Daily beast’s Christopher Dickey writes about the forthcoming launch of Al Jazeera America, and the impact it could have on American TV news.
It always seemed a little improbable that Arab sheiks could save American journalism. But in a business as troubled as the vast wasteland of American television news, hope springs eternal, and the Al Jazeera network out of Qatar seemed to offer an opulent oasis…
I’ve been following the ups and downs of Al Jazeera America all year, talking to staffers in the States, Europe, and the Middle East, and it’s still a good guess its pockets are too deep for it to fail, at least in the short term—or at least not before it launches. It will go on the air sometime in the not-too-dim future. And it will bring a lot of fresh energy as well as controversy to the news scene in the world’s most important television market. It could transform the way we see news and the way we think about it. But, then again, it could be a disaster in almost every sense of the word.
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