Last week, Qatar-based media giant Al Jazeera purchased Al Gore’s failing Current TV for five hundred million dollars. After years of being snubbed by American cable networks, is Al Jazeera’s expansion purely a business endeavor? This week, Malihe Razazzan spoke with Jadaliyya's Media and Reporting Co-Editor and adjunct professor at Georgetown University Adel Iskandar about the motives behind Al Jazeera's buy-out, the station's background and influence, its funding from the emirate of Qatar, and prospects in the United States. Iskandar is the co-author of first book published about the network entitled Al-Jazeera: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism (Basic, 2003).