> Seems like a strange overreaction. I mean, I get Al Jazeera English here in DC.

This is an exception. As noted on Wikipedia[0],

> Al Jazeera English is unavailable to cable viewers in the US, with the exception of those in Toledo, Ohio; Burlington, Vermont; Staten Island, Washington State and Washington, D.C. Many analysts consider this to be effectively a "black out".

More information in these[1,2] articles.

Some say it is for political reasons:

> Al Jazeera English launched in the fall of 2006, opening a large bureau on K Street in downtown Washington, but has made little progress in persuading cable companies to offer the channel to its customers.

> The objections from the cable companies have come for both political and commercial reasons, said Burman, the former editor-in-chief of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. "In 2006, pre-Obama, the experience was a challenging one. Essentially this was a period when a lot of negative stereotypes were associated with Al Jazeera. The effort was a difficult one," he said, citing the Bush administration's public hostility to the network.

> "There was reluctance from these companies to embark in a direction that would perhaps be opposed by the Bush administration. I think that's changed. I think if anything the Obama administration has indicated to Al Jazeera that it sees us as part of the solution, not part of the problem," Burman said.

> Cable companies are also worried, said Burman, that they will lose more subscribers than they will gain by granting access to Al Jazeera.

Others say it is because the American public does not like unsanitized reporting:

> So why has Al Jazeera English found it so difficult to gain a foothold in the United States? One reason is a perceived lack of audience; the network is not typical American television fare, and cable operators doubt many Americans would embrace the change. During the two years I worked at Al Jazeera English, I was continually amazed by the channel's inversion of conventional U.S. news values--in particular, its willingness to convey suffering in the developing world, like that of the Samouni family, in graphic detail. Far from conspiracy or manipulation, as critics charge, this use of evocative imagery is the natural result of a dynamic process meant to translate news into what Bruce Shapiro, director of the Dart Center on Journalism and Trauma, calls "the visual language of a particular culture."

> "It's not about a rigid corporate agenda or a rigid imperialist agenda imposed from above," Shapiro explains in an interview with the author. "It's about a much more complex dynamic between sources, journalists, managers, and image-makers."
Unpacking that dynamic is essential to understanding the biases of American news, as well as the difficulties channels like Al Jazeera English have attracting an audience in the United States. Understanding this also gives reason to hope that given a broader range of media options, the media preferences of Americans--and popular sympathies--might change as well.

0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera#Availability

1: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/30/al-jazeera-english-...

2: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Absence-of-Al-Jazeera-...