Al Jazeera, Link TV's Answer to Primetime Leno

Jay Leno moves to his nightly 10 p.m. time-slot this fall, sending networks scrambling for ideas on how, or whether, to counter the subversion. Link TV (CNN for the broad-minded) has the answer: Beginning June 1, Al Jazeera English will make its debut on mainstream American TV nightly at 10 p.m. (channel 375 on Direct TV and channel 9410 on Dish Network). The 10 p.m. time-slot is traditionally reserved for mayhem and gore shows, so Middle East-centered news should feel at home (I'm still waiting for an homage to my native city: "CSI: Beirut").

Al Jazeera English launched in 2006 to fine reviews (the Qatar-based satellite network launched its Arab-language service, groundbreaking for the Middle East, in 1996), getting penetration into some 140 million households worldwide. But it's had trouble breaking into the American market, either on cable or satellite. No surprise there. Al Jazeera was on the Bush administration's private list of terrorist organizations, and not-so private list of military targets (Al Jazeera personnel was killed by American strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan).

The channel came close to a deal in 2006, when it almost signed with Comcast, the cable provider. But Comcast characteristically got fearful, yielding to stereotypical (and just plain idiotic) impressions of Al Jazeera as a mouthpiece for al-Qaeda. The deal was never struck.

The channel is easily available on the Internet and through specialty satellite or cable operations, but Link TV is providing the first broad access to Al Jazeera English, even if just for a half hour. The broadcast is being paired with Link's signature program, Mosaic, an excellent nightly compendium of original news reports from throughout the Middle East, Iran and Israel included, provided with simultaneous translation into English by Jamal Dajani, the station's seemingly superhuman director of Middle Eastern Programming. Yesterday's broadcast, for example, offered original reports from Oman, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, the United Arabn Emirates, and two reports from Al Jazeera (one of them a fascinating piece about "Druze refuseniks in Israel.")

The perspectives are eye-opening and can be addictive, providing as they do not so much a different slant on the news (there is that) but a vastly wider spectrum of views and sheer subject matters than American news networks, for all their 24-hour presumptions to total coverage, provide. And don't get me started on tone. Every time I watch Brian Williams or Katie Couric, I get the feeling that I'm being condescended to in a fifth-grade class. Cue "My Pet Goat."

Better yet, cue Mosaic: you can watch complete editions on the Web if you're not a satellite subscriber. And with Al Jazeera's "World News," you'll have a solid news-hour's worth of antidote to Leno's gentle, harmless, and quite useless 10 p.m. narcotics.

See Also:

• Al Jazeera in US Eyes
• Al Jazeera Profile
• Why Israel Is in Conflict with Al Jazeera
• The Muhammad Cartoons, Al-Qaeda and Al Jazeera
• Sami al Haj: From Guantanamo Bay to Al Jazeera
• Israeli Cable Provider Dropping CNN, Picking Up al-Jazeera

And Elsewhere:

• Link TV
• Al Jazeera English
• Al Jazeera Meets American Resistance
• C.C. Radsch: The Al Jazeera Exception