Inside Al Jazeera
If Colbert was giving voice to a September 11 mind-set that still secretly plagued the network’s image—Al Jazeera as a Trojan horse for extremism—Mohyeldin seemed to anticipate the question, assuming the measured voice of reason to Colbert’s contretemps. “Unfortunately Americans are being deprived of the choice of watching Al Jazeera,” he said, “and people say that Americans aren’t interested in international news. I think that’s false…. The reality of it is these cable companies which are not carrying Al Jazeera are sadly helping to contribute to the misinformation…. “
On Colbert’s mock-news, this was the only true ideological clap line of the night, perhaps because the audience cottoned to the idea of free choice and unfiltered information, and from where I stood, sandwiched between two Al Jazeera PR people in the wings—a pair of young Americans named Molly and Sophia—there was a palpable sigh of relief. If the first question of the day was whether America was ready to give Al Jazeera a second look, then, at least here at the Comedy Central theater on West 54th Street, the network had reasonably survived the hard blast of American chauvinism played by Stephen Colbert, but more, they’d heard what they felt at least a little deserving of: some good old-fashioned American applause.
