Maybe Al-Jazeera is just the closest individual embodiment of the cultural divide we'll see between the middle east and the west? From the Washing Post description of that book on the Amazon page I posted:

Even as al-Jazeera was breaking barriers and offering hard-hitting news, Miles observes, it ran into problems with nearly every Arab regime. From Egypt to Algeria to the Gulf, the channel was either shut down or on the verge of having the plug pulled at one time or another. The Saudis even used their clout to block much of its advertising market; according to Miles, Riyadh threatened potential advertisers like the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson with the loss of their contracts if they bought commercial time. This helps explain why al-Jazeera, for all its regional popularity, still can't operate without extensive subsidies from the Qatari government. (Al-Jazeera is Arabic for "the peninsula," a reference to Qatar's location in the Gulf.)