Unless Americans see the images and narratives that shape how others see us, the US will not be able to overcome its reputation as the world’s half-blind bully,” wrote Naomi Wolf in an article this week in the Huffington Post entitled "I want my Al Jazeera."

Since the so-called Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, the phenomenon is being hailed in Washington as the “Al Jazeera moment,” just as coverage of the 1991 Gulf war by an upstart cable channel is said to have been the “CNN moment” that transformed American news.

On Capitol Hill four weeks ago, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered what amounted to an advertisement for Al Jazeera to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

“Viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news,” she said. “It is real news instead of a million commercials and ... arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news. Like it or hate it, it is really effective.”

Rami Khoury, an internationally syndicated political columnist and director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, said that on the whole Al Jazeera’s coverage has been outstanding.

“That’s why they are so successful. Professionally speaking, as a journalist, their coverage is excellent," he said. "They provide in-depth coverage, they are balanced, they reflect the full views of the region, including Israel. They are professional, but I think they carry an emotional tinge that broadly reflects … Arab public opinion.”

This is all a far cry from the years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks when the Qatar-based network was seen by many in the Bush administration as the enemy. Donald Rumsfeld, then Pentagon chief, scathingly said in 2004 that the network's coverage of civilian casualties during Operation Vigilant Resolve in Fallujah were “vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable.”

Rumsfeld described it as tantamount to an arm of Al-Qaeda, and accused the network of being “a mouthpiece of Al-Qaeda” and “inexcusably biased.”

Soon after, two Al Jazeera reporters were killed in Baghdad when US missiles hit the network's  office. Al Jazeera and others voiced suspicions that the channel’s reporters had been deliberately targeted. Today, Al Jazeera's English-language network, formed in 2006, is deemed so essential that it is beamed directly into the Oval Office of the US President Barack Obama.

Across the Atlantic, British Prime Minister David Cameron has also made clear he is a fan. The prime minister has told friends that he considers Al Jazeera to be essential viewing for anyone wanting to know what is being discussed on the Arab Street.

Just this week it was announced that former CNN anchor Tony Harris joined Al Jazeera English as a news presenter and moved to Doha.

But there remains vigorous resistance from some quarters. Fox News host Bill O’Reilly has been a virulent critic, branding Al Jazeera as a purveyor of “anti-Semitism and hate America rhetoric.”

The impact of Al Jazeera in English in the US in the past two months has been all the more remarkable because, despite huge public demand, it can only been seen on cable in a few cities: Washington DC; Toledo, Ohio; Burlington, Vermont; and, for part of the day, Los Angeles.

Millions of Americans, however, are now watching the channel live-streaming on the Internet and Al Jazeera has received tens of thousands of e-mails praising its coverage. In recent weeks, AJE has been pursuing talks with US cable companies about broadcasting across the country rather than in a handful of isolated pockets. No outcome has yet to be announced.