A very Arab view on very American politics

Hafez Al-Mirazi is waiting for his interview with Peter Jennings when his cellphone rings. It's the Washington Post. They would like to talk to him, too. Add in the interview requests earlier from Variety and a local television station and you have a busy day. And it's only 1 p.m. [Editor's note: In the original version, Hafiz al-Mirazi's name was misspelled.]

Mr. Mirazi is answering questions about Al Jazeera's FleetCenter sign, which was quietly removed, when no one was looking, by someone associated with the Democratic convention and taken to a warehouse in the distant suburbs for "aesthetic reasons." It's OK, he says, not completely sincerely; the sign was about getting the Arab news channel publicity - and considering all the interviews it's been just as effective in absentia.

Mirazi has spent a lot of time talking to journalists lately. As Washington bureau chief for Al Jazeera, he is as much an interviewer here as he is an interview subject - on a lot more than just his lost sign.

As the head of the 16-person cultural lightning rod that works out of a trailer in the ABC News area near the FleetCenter, his role as spokesman may be more important than his role as journalist.

"It's good that we are here," he says. "It makes it clear to people that we're covering a legitimate story, if there is such a thing as legitimate and illegitimate stories." He smiles. "But it is a bit self-referential. The media covering the media covering the media."

And yes, through one lens Mirazi's press rounds could be the ultimate example of the nation's and the news media's own navel gazing. As foreign coverage, reporting on the world outside our borders, declines, we spend more and more time looking at ourselves, or looking at the world looking at us.

But there are reasons Al Jazeera has grabbed the fascination of the media here. Its coverage, which few of us will watch or understand, may be the most important reporting on this convention and this election.

The US may wish to bring democracy to the Middle East, but as it tries it is Al Jazeera that will probably have the most control over the discussion. The network is the window through which much of the Arabic-speaking world - 40 million viewers, according to the station - sees the US.

The strained relations between the Qatar-based channel and the US are well-known. During the Iraq war, the Bush administration said Al Jazeera had a strong anti-American bias and asked the channel's largest shareholder, Qatar's leader, to intervene. A US bomb hit Al Jazeera's Baghdad headquarters, killing one reporter.

But in 2004, the channel's audience is bringing something new to its viewing, an interest in what is going on in American politics. An interest that extends even to the four days of Up With People going on in the FleetCenter.

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