Al Jazeera



Pan-Arabic 24-hour news network based in Qatar (and owned by the Qatari government), now with an English language version (launched in 2006) which recently snagged legendary British TV journalist Sir David Frost.

Al Jazeera has at various times been accused of being anti-American, anti-Jewish, and anti-Islamic (but not all at the same time). The network has received complaints for media bias towards the language they are broadcasting in -- the English-speaking channel is accused of being more pro-American, while the Arabic versions (especially in Palestine) are accused of glorifying "the resistance", showing terrorist-produced videos and messages. In the Middle East, it is also controversial for coverage that is critical of local governments, with many countries having tried to ban it and reporters having gotten death threats.

In the United States, the English-language feed "Al Jazeera English" is only available online, via satellite or through a number of very small cable companies. (It is more widely available in Canada.) Despite what some have called corporate censorship occurring in the US, the network has posted immense viewership growth since the start of the 2011 Democratic Revolutions in the Middle East, with the website's traffic jumping up two thousand percent over the period, with sixty percent of that traffic growth being from the United States.