In an op-ed titled “Welcome to a World without Foreign Correspondents,” Stroehlein lamented the dearth of coverage of Somalia and Sri Lanka, adding, “Too bad Al Jazeera English is not available on most living-room screens in the US, and people there have to choke down the endless rotting fish heads of celebrity news, or the same tiresome group of ignoramuses shouting at each other in a studio — both the cheapest forms of filling air time after a test card.”

He calls himself a “major fan” of AJE, which is widely watched in Europe. “I think Al Jazeera English is the best international television news in the world, with the caveat that BBC World News is probably equally good. We as an organization take it very seriously. We’re trying to get political decisions made to stop conflict, so we’re fairly elite-media driven, and people in foreign policy circles watch it because it’s so intelligently done.”

At a time when the media have come to be regarded as actors in international conflicts rather than impartial observers — embedded coverage of the Iraq war being a case in point — a Knight Foundation–funded study of Al Jazeera English, conducted by the Center on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School, found that the channel functions as a form of “conciliatory media.” In other words, it works as a “clash of civilizations” in reverse, facilitating cross-cultural reconciliation rather than pitting us versus them. The longer viewers had been watching AJE, the study concluded, the less dogmatic was their thinking.

Comparing it with the American networks “is like comparing The Economist to Newsweek,” Philip Seib, author of The Al Jazeera Effect: How the New Global Media Are Reshaping World Politics, told me in Dubai. “It’s so much more sophisticated and broad in terms of coverage.” A professor at USC Annenberg who studies the links between media, war, and terrorism, Seib says AJE has “expanded the realm of discourse” and could be invaluable in breaking down American insularity. “I think you’ll find those who criticize it have never seen it,” he says.

Stroehlein, meanwhile, thinks AJE has caused its only real competitor, BBC World, to up its game. “One reason I’m desperate to see Al Jazeera English enter the American news market is that it’s going to challenge the other news providers,” he says. Or maybe it won’t. Solid international reporting is important, but it’s hardly profitable; and serious reporting, Stroehlein acknowledges, is all about the dateline. That means foreign bureaus based in the countries they cover. It means long-term commitments to a region. In other words, it means something commercial broadcasters aren’t willing to provide: money.

Journalism has a responsibility to society, Stroehlein says, arguing that news reporting is not just another business: “How many businesses are there where if someone screws up just a little bit, you have mass violence?”

The same potential exists when no one is there to bear witness at all — potential not only for mass violence but for corruption, nepotism, and an uninformed public incapable of holding anyone to account. Which is why the current crisis in journalism is so dire, and why any and all efforts to reverse that trend should be welcomed, even if they come from the most hated name in news.

For Tony Burman — who can, it turns out, still have lunch in Toronto, despite occasional ribbing about “shilling for al Qaeda” (he likes to say he’s only met Osama bin Laden a dozen times), and who expects you’ll be watching Al Jazeera English somewhere around the same time you read this — controversy is the price of admission for hard-hitting journalism. Al Jazeera, he believes, “will be controversial every day it exists. That’s not only the nature of the organization; that’s almost the purpose of the organization: to keep stirring the pot so that change happens.”