That could also have a tiny bit to do with the fact that Al Jazeera is the main news source available in the Arabic language.

Part of the reason for Al Jazeera's importance in effecting change is that it brought western-style independent television network reporting to the Mideast masses, including the many functionally illiterate.

Previous to its existence, a ruler could say one thing in English to western reporters and another thing in Arabic to be disseminated to his people by state run television, and often did in many cases. One of the main reasons for the founding of the translation organization MEMRI was to highlight that kind of thing to the west, though they had their own axe to grind.

The original model is sort of BBC World in the original funding by Qatar government and its start up was helped by getting experienced staff from the shut down of BBC Arabic following Saudi censorship.

In its early days people were rightly skeptical whether it would just be another mouthpiece of another Arab ruler, playing this traditional distract 'em game.

Also I would note that its growth in the more recent years has included the hiring of lots of journalists with experience in the western MSM. Finally, there's an awful lot of non-Arab names on Al Jazeera English and as I doubt many of them are fluent in Arabic, I am always wondering how what's being said on Al Jazeera Arabic differs, whether they are translating all those pieces or they are just offered for the English speaking audience.

They may be testing the limits of their overlords here:

Amnesty: Qatari blogger detained
Human rights group says Sultan al-Khalaifi has been held incommunicado in Qatar since March 2 and risks being tortured.
05 Mar 2011 18:31 GMT

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/03/20113511455929372.html

From wikipedia on Al-Jazeera, see

Editorial independence

Al-Jazeera emphasizes that it is editorially independent, though much of its funding comes from the Qatar government. U.S. State Department internal communications, released by WikiLeaks as part of the 2010 United States diplomatic cables leak, claim that the Qatar government manipulates Al-Jazeera coverage to suit political interests.

And

Qatar

Al Jazeera has been criticized for failing to report on many hard-hitting news stories that originate from Qatar, where Al Jazeera is based. The two most frequently cited stories were the revoking of citizenship from the Al Ghafran clan of the Al Murrah tribe in response to a failed coup that members of the Al Ghafran clan were implicated in, and Qatar's growing relations with and diplomatic visits to Israel

As'ad at Angry Arab makes a sarcastic crack about this first here and then following up after finally seeing them report it here. As a far lefty, I've noticed he regularly bashes them on this front--here's another similar point made March 3--and has done so for a long time.