Al-Jazeera Finds Its English Voice

Parsons sees no problem in hiring the 40 staffers envisioned for the Washington office: "By and large, people have been approaching us. We have well over 4,000 applications for editorial jobs from people who've worked at CNN, BBC, Fox, Sky News and Australian television."

As for salaries, Parsons said, "some people expect us to be handing out gold bars. We're not awash with petrodollars." He says that while more than half of the network's funding comes from the emir of Qatar, the government has never tried to interfere with programming.

One journalist who will anchor a Washington call-in program is Riz Kahn, a former BBC staffer and CNN International host.

Kahn said he is aware of al-Jazeera's reputation in the United States but views this as a "new channel" staffed by credible journalists, including his friend Parsons. "Any concern people have that it's going to be slanted one way or anti-American, they'll be appeased once they realize it's a proper international channel," he said.

Parsons has taken his case to Washington, paying courtesy calls on such skeptics as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Elizabeth Cheney, the vice president's daughter, and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who was not persuaded.

"They've become a platform for a bunch of nuts and radical Islamists that are damaging to the United States and put our people at risk," Rohrabacher said. "Al-Jazeera is anathema to people who believe in responsible journalism. . . . It is hate-based reporting."

Clifford May, president of the advocacy group Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said any American who goes on al-Jazeera "is misguided. He thinks he'll be able to tell the truth. I think he's going to be used and be seen as a useful idiot."

Even without al-Jazeera's controversial reputation, it will be difficult for the new network -- which has deals to be carried in Europe, Asia and Africa -- to get widespread access to U.S. cable and satellite outlets. "We don't expect to be on in 25 or 30 million homes on Day One," Parsons said. "I'll be delighted if we've got 5 million homes and can build on that."

Al-Jazeera claims to be the world's fifth-most recognizable brand. But Parsons concedes that U.S. cable operators may make the commercial decision that their audience isn't terribly interested in foreign news.

"We feel America has a fairly poor understanding of the outside world, and the outside world has a fairly poor understanding of the United States. . . . All we're asking is to be judged on our own merits," he said.

Frost, who added to his considerable fame in America nearly three decades ago by conducting the first post-Watergate interviews with Richard Nixon, said he finds the new channel "a perfectly friendly environment" because there are so many ex-BBC staffers.

Frost said he had seen a script for a promotional tape that contains some supportive comments from Bill Clinton. Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said these must have been taken from a recent al-Jazeera interview with the former president, and that since Clinton never does commercial promotions, his office would send a cease-and-desist letter if the network used excerpts for that purpose.

"I'm not an apologist for al-Jazeera Arabic," Frost said. "I think it's good to have another 24-hour news network in the world bringing a different point of view, a 360-degree point of view."