Can Al Jazeera Survive Rising Mideast Tensions?

Qatar’s $1 billion media giant is in peril as Saudi Arabia leads a blockade against a country Trump called a ‘funder of terrorism’

- Alex Ritman

On Sept. 19, 2013, Qatar-based media giant Al Jazeera pulled out all the stops for a glitzy gala at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Backed by the near-bottomless pockets of the Qatari royal family, which sources say has pumped in more than $1 billion since its launch in 1996, the news organization was celebrating the one-month anniversary of Al Jazeera America, its English-language channel that effectively had taken over Al Gore’s Current TV (which it purchased in January 2013 for a rumored $500 million).

Four years later, not only has Al Jazeera America sunk without a trace (it folded in April 2016, citing the “economic landscape”), but a major diplomatic crisis in the Middle East also potentially has put the whole Al Jazeera network — one of the crown jewels for the tiny yet gas-rich state of Qatar — under threat.