The now-influential network began in the 1970s as a pet project of a tiny nation's unconventional monarchy



Al Jazeera's English-language studios in Doha, Qatar / AP

In his 1998 work Dream Palace of the Arabs, Fouad Ajami wrote, "As the world batters the modern Arab inheritance, the rhetorical need for anti-Zionism grows. But there rises, too, the recognition that it is time for the imagination to steal away from Israel and to look at the Arab reality, to behold its own view of the kind of world the Arabs want for themselves." Whether Ajami realized it or not, these words offer an eerily prescient view--thirteen years ahead of time--of the dynamic behind the Arab Spring and its autumn and winter sequels. In country after country, Arab crowds have taken to the street for a cause more positive and all-embracing than anti-Zionism: the demand for an end to corrupt authoritarian regimes and for a greater say in their own future. What shape that future will take remains to be seen, and many basic questions have yet to be answered. Can democracy blossom overnight in societies that have always been dominated by oppressive force? If democracy does take root, can respect for minority rights survive the tyranny of a poor, ill-schooled and often intolerant majority? Would democratically elected demagogues pose even more of a threat to peace and stability in the Muslim-Arab world than old-line authoritarian regimes and monarchies with a selfish stake in maintaining the status quo and "keeping the lid on"?

Meanwhile, where can one turn for detailed, reliable coverage of what some now call the "Arab Awakening"? For millions of people around the world, including actual participants on the ground and in the streets of the Middle East, the single most important news source for the events still unfolding in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain is the English-language channel of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television-news network. Like it or not, it is no exaggeration to say that Al Jazeera has been the eyes and ears of this crucial news story. More often than not, Al Jazeera correspondents are the first on the scene, and Al Jazeera anchors and interviewers provide the most detailed follow-up, discussion and analysis of breaking events in the Arab world.

This, to put it mildly, is odd. To offer a European analogy, it would be as if an English-language television channel owned by Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg and operated out of his tiny realm were the most influential news source for the entire European Union and for millions of people elsewhere following the current European politico-economic crisis. But there is no denying the facts: Al Jazeera's English-language news channel reaches an estimated 220 million households worldwide. Currently celebrating its fifth anniversary, in the few years since its founding even its fiercest critics have come to acknowledge both its increasing global impact and, more recently, its indispensable role in covering the wave of revolutionary ferment sweeping the Middle East.