The network is trying to incorporate all
kinds of social media into its programming.
An interactive TV show out of the Washington, D.C., bureau called The Stream was
scheduled to debut in May. It’s a play on the
call-in show, but rather than respond to
viewers’ telephone queries, the hosts will
look to Twitter, Facebook, and You Tube for
topics to discuss. The show will start and
end online, with the televised portion in the
middle. “We should try every path to reach
out to the people,” Khanfar says. “Whatever
application brings us to the people, we will
do that.”
On my secOnd tO last day in Qatar, Khanfar
and I sit down to talk about the challenges
he faces as he tries to maintain momentum
and build Al Jazeera into a global news
power. He’s had a hectic few days, negotiating with the Libyan government to free four
Al Jazeera journalists who’ve been held hostage and huddling with top editors to figure
out the best way to cover protests in Syria
and Yemen. His air-conditioned cream-colored office, with its bookcases and separate sitting and dining areas, feels like a
haven from the 24/7 news cycle—except that
the five TV screens, each one tuned to a different station, are a stark reminder that Al
Jazeera’s popularity could be fleeting.
Conan O’Brien
continued from page 87
demand for a raise: “The cast says that MTV
had better come up with the money, or else
they’ll take their lack of talent somewhere
else.” A keeper.
3: 50 p.m.: King, short, stooped, and wearing
a red rain slicker, finally arrives in the green
room without a care in the world: “Hey, guys!”
arOund 4 p.m.: O’Brien and Richter run lines
in the dressing room with King. It’ll have
to do.
4: 30 p.m.: Richter: “Conan O’Briiiiien!”
O’Brien walks out and ignores the jokes
on the cue cards for the first minute. He
Conan: “If I only did a
show when I thought we
were completely ready to
go, we’d do about two
shows a year.”
One of his greatest disappointments, he
tells me, is his failure to crack the American
cable-television market. Since its inception in
2006, Al Jazeera English has yet to make a
single distribution deal with a major U.S.
cable company. Despite the attention Al
Jazeera correspondents received for their fair,
aggressive coverage of the crisis in Egypt, you
can’t watch them on TV unless you live in
Washington, D.C.; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Toledo, Ohio; or Burlington, Vermont.
Khanfar understands that he’s operating
in an American political environment so
charged that Fox News host Sean Hannity
once ridiculed anchor Stuart Varney on air
for wearing a yellow patterned tie that
vaguely resembled Al Jazeera’s logo. “We
have to prove our innocence,” Khanfar says.
“We are not the Osama bin Laden channel.
You can have news from all over the world in
a professional way.”
To minimize fears about its aims and
broaden its appeal to a diverse interna-
tional audience, Khanfar is trying to
cement Al Jazeera English’s appeal not just
in the U.S. and the U.K. but also in India,
Nigeria, South Africa, and the Philippines.
The plan moving for ward is to cover univer-
sal issues such as the emerging global mid-
dle class, or English speakers’ views of
politics in the Arab world. In short, Al
spies a giant of a man in the crowd and
improvises. “Look at this guy, he’s a mon-
ster,” he says. He brings the 6-foot- 9 man on
stage and the 6-foot- 4 O’Brien hugs him
forcefully. “The formula is to prepare like
crazy,” O’Brien says. “But then, just as you’re
heading out, forget all of it.”
4: 39 p.m.: The Richter-dummy fall and dis-
mount go over well. So does O’Brien’s clumsy
attempt to kick the dummy offstage. It
wasn’t in the script. He added it in rehearsal.
4: 41 p.m.: O’Brien: “Live from 30 feet above
me, Larry King!”
Rehearsal, shmehearsal. Larry King
kills. His comic timing is spot-on. When
O’Brien comes back from break, he tells the
crowd that King had to leave. The camera
cuts to King’s desk in the rafters, and Rich-
ter’s dummy is filling in. Another unplanned
bit that gets a laugh. O’Brien came up with
the idea during the commercial.
4: 55 p.m.: Morgan, the wild card, doesn’t dis-
appoint, pointing out that his nipples are
visible through his fishnet shirt: “As soon as
Conan: “Larry had to
leave at the commercial
break to get married
again.”
Jazeera English wants to cover international news in a broad, sophisticated way
that few U.S. news networks can match
with their reduced budgets. (Al Jazeera has
the benefit of a seemingly bottomless well
of Qatari cash, courtesy of the emir. Khanfar says the network lost “much more” than
$80 million last year.)
Despite its financial dependence on the
monarchy, Khanfar says the network’s only
bias is toward covering ordinary people
and the burgeoning democratic process in
the Arab world, and standing up to insti-
tutions and leaders. Khanfar is reluctant to
say much about the emir’s role, preferring
to hold forth on the values he picked up as
a field reporter. “Centers of power,” he says,
“consistently lie and try to divert your
camera or your message. You have to trust
the people. Their intuitive sense is much
more authentic.”
But I ask: “Aren’t you a center of power
now?”
Khanfar laughs. He likes to be chal-
lenged. “We have to be questioned too.”
Good leaders need to build consensus, he
says. “It would be much easier to be a dicta-
tor like Arab leaders.” He grins. “But it
doesn’t work.”
cook@fastcompany.com
I come on, I start lactating.” He barely mentions the movie he’s ostensibly there to plug.
He does one off-color riff after another, and
O’Brien gleefully hangs on for dear life. It’s a
two, all right.
5: 30 p.m.: After the taping, Ross, Sweeney,
and O’Brien reconvene in his dressing room
to “talk down” the show—what worked and
what didn’t. There’s not much to criticize
today. The scripted comedy worked, but
much of the show was spontaneous. When
that happens, “the whole energy in the room
changes,” O’Brien says. “People know that
these cookies are being made fresh right in
front of them, and it’s exciting.”
9 p.m.: O’Brien, joined by Sweeney and a
couple of writers in Sweeney’s office, wraps
up the Facebook live-blogging marathon,
during which they posted 53 jokes in 60
minutes. O’Brien’s final zinger: “We don’t
run credits because I do everything myself.”
Another day in the comedy mines,
another diamond.
salter@fastcompany.com
Sweeney:
“There’s
recrimination.
There’s crying.”
