If all goes according to plan, the channel’s massive audience will soon expand beyond the Arabian peninsula (its name means, literally, “the Peninsula”). By the end of 2005, Al-Jazeera plans to launch a new international English-language service, to be called Al-Jazeera International. Westerners may still debate whether Al-Jazeera provides forward-thinking programming or jihadist propaganda, but soon more of them will be able to judge the controversial channel’s brand of programming for themselves.
Right now in the States, about 200,000 paying subscribers can watch Al-Jazeera on the Dish Network. If all goes as planned, Al-Jazeera could go the way of the Beatles during their Liverpool days: an already sizable audience, but on its way to being bigger than Jesus. Al-Jazeera International’s target audience: Westerners dissatisfied with the mainstream media and intrigued by a news organization that openly attacks the “blatant lies” behind the invasion of Iraq and purports to speak for the world’s forgotten billions.
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