Americans Want Real News

Al Jazeera English's jump in viewers over the past few weeks is a pretty good indication that there's a market in this country for intelligent international news coverage. While blonde-girl-gets-kidnapped-in-small-town-America stories might sell to a certain demographic of viewers, there is little doubt that there exists a large pool of disgruntled Americans who don't currently watch cable TV because they feel as though it's trivial and highly sensationalized. The media critic Jeff Jarvis, in a speech I attended awhile back, made the argument that although the gradual sensationalization of cable news coverage has been justified on economic grounds ('we just can't make a profit if we run serious news stories; that's not what Americans want,' the TV execs say), there is a market for in-depth, thoughtful, comprehensive TV news coverage of international issues in this country. It's just not being tapped into.

While CNN, FOX, and MSNBC have mostly bumbled through the coverage of the uprising in Egypt, Al Jazeera English has been busy making a name for itself here in the United States. Since the channel was launched in 2006, Al Jazeera English has been heavily marginalized in the US market. With the exception of a few minor cable companies, the station has not been offered by any of the major American cable/satellite providers. In recent weeks, however, particularly as the Egypt protests have unfolded, the channel's English-language website has received an astounding 2000% increase in hits, of which 60% have come from the United States. Many of these visitors have been logging on in order to watch Al Jazeera English's live feed, which can be viewed directly from their website.

Now, it looks like Al Jazeera English is trying to build on this momentum to finally force its way into the American market.

...Mr. Anstey, the managing director, said in an interview that renewed talks with the major distributors were now under way. “There’s a growing call for Al Jazeera. That’s clear,” he said. Al Jazeera English has contacted Comcast, for instance, and a meeting has been scheduled for later this month. In an indication that perceptions of Al Jazeera may be changing, one of its correspondents in Washington reported on Thursday that people there “are all of a sudden very welcoming” to the network. “We’re on TVs all across the city.”

Frank Rich, writing in the New York Times the other day, notes how "ravenous" American viewers are for sophisticated news coverage of the Egypt uprising.

Unable to watch Al Jazeera English, and ravenous for comprehensive and sophisticated 24/7 television coverage of the Middle East otherwise unavailable on television, millions of Americans last week tracked down the network’s Internet stream on their computers. Such was the work-around required by the censorship practiced by America’s corporate gatekeepers. You’d almost think these news-starved Americans were Iron Curtain citizens clandestinely trying to pull in the jammed Voice of America signal in the 1950s — or Egyptians desperately seeking Al Jazeera after Mubarak disrupted its signal last week.

Having Al Jazeera English as a provider of news on cable networks in the United States could do a world of good. The station's detailed coverage of international news stories might encourage the lazy news execs at CNN and FOX to actually do their job as journalists: provide rigorous coverage of national and international news stories, and to spend a little less time on small town murder intrigue. In the Middle East, Al Jazeera's Arabic channel has had a similar effect: other Arab news networks have been forced to either provide more serious news coverage or risk losing their market share to Al Jazeera.

Here's to hoping that Al Jazeera English is successful.