Through the Cave Hole? I don’t think so.

Promising to give the West a new perspective on the news, Al Jazeera's English news service launched this week.

Broadcasting from four locations around the world Kuala Lumpur, Doha, London and Washington, the new service has attracted some experienced news journalists, of which Sir David Frost is its most prominent.

Frost’s career in broadcasting has spanned over forty years and he has famously interviewed every British Prime Minister since Wilson and every American President since Nixon.

His programme, Frost around the World, began in Grand Style with an interview with Tony Blair from Downing Street.

The questions had an almost exclusively Middle Eastern focus, the Palestinian peace process, the situation in Darfur, whether to execute Saddam and of course the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If the purpose of the interview was to put the Prime Minister under pressure, Frost’s interviewing style prevented this. The long rambling questioning style marred his final years at the BBC has not gone away.
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Blair was given the time to consider his answers and stuck to the line that Britain and America had a commitment to support “the decent majority against those who peddle an extremist view of Islam.”

Questioned on the inclusion of Iran and Syria in the peace process he explained that if they must abide with international regulations, stop supporting terrorism.” The door is open if they want to play a constructive part of the peace process.”

Only towards the end of the interview did Frost start to relax into his old style. He
cheekily asking Blair if Cherie would be doing a Hillary and possibly standing for Prime Minister and asking whether he would stand as foreign secretary under Gordon Brown.

Finally Blair saying that in his final months in charge that he would like to make progress in Israeli-Palestinian dispute and change the perspective to be a battle between tolerance and those who want to divide us instead of being Christian v Muslim.

Frost reportedly though long and hard before joining the new network and investigated whether the rumours of Al Qaida backing was true.
Let us hope that all of his research pays off.