Tearing Down The Walls

It was a typical al-Jazeera moment, one loaded with controversy. Two weeks ago, a story broke that a U.S. State Department official had told the Arabic-language TV channel that the U.S. had acted with arrogance and stupidity in the Iraq war. The State Department initially denied that the official, Alberto Fernandez, a spokesman for the Near Eastern Affairs bureau, had said any such thing. But a review of the transcript soon proved otherwise. The broadcast was accurate. And al-Jazeera had made news again.

The channel — which celebrates 10 years on the air this week — has been...