Israeli Cable Provider Dropping CNN, Picking Up al-Jazeera

This just in: The Jerusalem Post reports that HOT Television, Israel's biggest cable and satellite provider, is about to get rid of CNN and carry al-Jazeera's English edition instead. "The announcement," the Post reports, "marks the latest programming shake-up by the cable provider, whose subscribers make up nearly two-thirds of Israel's cable and satellite audience."

It's a remarkable shift that probably says more about CNN's pandering fortunes and lack of appeal than about al-Jazeera's already widely established reputation as a news source of choice in the Middle East, if not necessarily the source of choice in Israel, where even CNN is often considered too anti-Israeli. HOT and its main competitor, Yes Television (not to be confused with the New York Yankees' Yes Network), already offer Al-Jazeera in Arabic, the Post reports. Yes added Al-Jazeera's English channel last year.

Al-Jazeera (like Fox News and the BBC) is apparently less expensive for cable carriers than CNN. But maybe something else is in play, too. Maybe CNN's dual attempt to beef up the Fox-style jingoism since 2001, muzzle challenging coverage, and beef up on Anderson Cooper-type smarm is catching up with its viewers' bottom line, at least abroad, where viewers tend to be less tolerant of softball coverage (which explains softball's lack of popularity outside American diamonds). "I think the press self-muzzled," CNN's Christiane Amanpour, who today was honored by Queen Elizabeth II as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, told USA Today a few years ago, in reference to the run-up to the Iraq war.

"I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did." And CNN International is far more generous to its correspondents, when it comes time for substantive reporting, than CNN's fluffier domestic variant.