<em>This story originally appeared in the Sunday, July 1, 2007 edition of The Kansas City Star</em></p><p>The summer of 2001 was a low point for TV news, what with wall-to-wall coverage of a missing Washington, D.C., intern and shark attacks.</p><p>Then came 9/11. In an instant, the American media’s gaze turned beyond our borders in a way it hadn’t since World War II -- a shift especially noticeable on television. For a while, viewers ate it up.</p><p>Since then, of course, cable news -- like Robert De Niro’s character in "Awakenings" -- has reverted to its pre-9/11 state. Meanwhile, a new wave of international news channels has sprung up to expand viewers’ horizons.</p><p>We just can’t watch any of them here.</p><p>One of these upstarts has a familiar-sounding name: Al-Jazeera English. Launched last fall by the same oil-rich emirate of Qatar that runs the Arabic Al-Jazeera, it was offered free to cable companies across America. Exactly one took up the offer -- a tiny carrier in Vermont serving fewer than 2,000 households.</p><p>Even at no charge, it seemed, adding Al-Jazeera English wasn’t worth the potential backlash from customers who consider Al-Jazeera the official network of Osama bin Laden and every nut job with a jihad to declare against the West.</p><p>I’ve been monitoring the new channel for several months over the Internet, paying $6 a month to watch a video stream supplied by Real Networks. And I am convinced it is the most important English-language cable channel to come along since Fox News.</p><p>It’s everything our cable news isn’t: global, meaty, consequential and compelling in the best sense of the word. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.</p><p>"I’m sitting in the Ambassador Hotel in Arab East Jerusalem glued to the TV," veteran Chicago City Hall reporter Ray Hanania wrote on his blog during a recent trip. "I’m watching the Al-Jazeera English-language satellite news station report things about the world that we never hear about in America. It’s amazing."</p><p>I called Reese Schonfeld, the first president of CNN. Still going strong after 50 years in the business, the ageless Schonfeld is active as a consultant and writer. He’s also an occasional guest on Fox News Channel and an Iraq War supporter. He had sampled Al-Jazeera English online, and I wanted to know what he thought.</p><p>"It’s a legitimate news service," he said. "They’ve told me things I never knew before, which surprised me. Their reports are much longer than American news reports. They pick their stories carefully. They’re as straight and narrow as Fox is."</p><p>You may not agree with Schonfeld’s last assessment, but this much is undeniable: Fox’s critics haven’t done a thing to dent its growth. By contrast, the minuscule opposition to Al-Jazeera English has effectively kept it off American cable and satellite systems, even as our allies scoop it up. (It’s in about 80 million homes worldwide and already a success in Israel, Pakistan and Germany.)</p><p>Since its launch, only a few U.S. cable operators have signed up, the largest being Block Communications, which serves Toledo, Ohio, and its large Arab-American population. "After our announcement, 50 to 100 people called to express their displeasure," said Tom Dawson, a spokesman for Block. "But we’ve always told them, ‘It’s not on yet. Don’t criticize it until you see it.’ "</p><p>That’s what Tim Nulty said, too. He runs the Vermont system that was the first to offer Al-Jazeera English on cable, and he got an earful from people who had their minds made up about it, sight unseen. So he turned it on in his lobby and invited people to come down and check it out. End of controversy.