Abstract
Officials of an English language version of the controversial television network Al Jazeera have been seeking distribution of it outside the Middle East. Those officials at Al Jazeera English (AJE) claim it's different from both its Middle Eastern namesake and the Western networks against which they're seeking to have it compete. A content analysis of the World news Web pages of Al Jazeera English, the BBC, CBS, and CNN compared features such as use of hyperlinks, videos, and interactive elements as well as story selection and sources quoted. All four networks covered essentially the same stories and quoted similar sources. Although AJE had the fewest number of stories with a positive tone toward the United States, its content was comparable to the other networks' content in terms of treatment of the United States and use of emotionally charged language. AJE was found to be similar enough to the other networks that its unique perspective was difficult to identify.
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