Selling Al Jazeera to a sceptic world

“Al Jazeera is a controversial channel, and I don’t think the positions of the new version will be all that different,” said Oussama Jamal, managing director of Starcom Egypt, a company that buys TV time on behalf of advertisers. “Some clients don’t want to associate themselves with news and politics in this way.”

So far, Al Jazeera has offered few details on the expected content of the English service. Though intended to be editorially independent of the Arabic channel, it will draw on the latter’s resources “where appropriate”, the broadcaster says. “We hope we will be judged on our merits but recognise that we may be seen as a sister channel” of the original, said Nigel Parsons, Al Jazeera International’s managing director.

In a surge of hiring intended to make the channel palatable to Western viewers and advertisers, it has secured the services of high-profile television personalities like David Frost, the veteran BBC interviewer, and Josh Rushing, a US military spokesman in the current war in Iraq. From CNN, it has added the anchor Riz Khan, and from Sky News of Britain, the reporter David Foster.

Channel executives said Al Jazeera International would feature an interview format programme with Frost, to be based in London, and a live daily Washington programme, with Khan as host, produced to allow interaction with viewers. As for Rushing, Parsons said he could help Al Jazeera International fill a unique role as a builder of bridges.

“While America is often bad at understanding the rest of the world,” he said, “the rest of the world is bad at understanding America.” —IHT/NYT