Nearly two years ago, Ehab Al Shihabi, the chief executive of Al Jazeera America, took the stage at the Aspen Ideas Festival and proposed something grand: An American cable news station that would be thoughtful, probing and smart.

This station would dispense with shouting heads and conduct real investigations, and with financing from the deep pockets of the Qatar government, it would have a budget to match its ambitions. The benchmark for success was to produce quality journalism and “to win the mind and the heart of the American audience,” Mr. Al Shihabi said. And what else?

“The rating is very critical for us,” he said. “The margin of the profit also is critical for us.”

Almost two years later, the ratings have not come, nor have the profits. The station has been a nonfactor in news, drawing about 30,000 viewers a night. To make matters worse, in the last week, a lawsuit and an exodus of top executives have brought to the surface a series of grievances that employees say reflects a deep dysfunction in management of the newsroom, undermining the network’s mission.

“I didn’t want to be there anymore because I didn’t like the culture of fear," said Marcy McGinnis, the network’s former senior vice president for news gathering, who resigned on Monday. “People are afraid to lose their jobs if they cross Ehab.”