Eight years ago, I wrote an optimistic column praising the Qatari-based Al Jazeera satellite network. My piece, “The Al Jazeera Revolution Turns Ten,” was published in five languages and reprinted around the world. The success and changes that the Doha-based television station brought to Arab media disappeared with the so-called Arab Spring. While Al Jazeera's original Arabic channel remains the most watched news station in the Arab region, its professionalism and impartiality has taken a few hits in recent years. The international Al Jazeera English is, however, a different story.

The English channel's tone is softer, and it is audibly calmer. Well-known and respected reporters, anchors and editors from a number of nations comprise the Doha-based station team and the channel's foreign outposts. This version of Al Jazeera won a Peabody Award in 2012 for its Arab Spring coverage. Its 24-hour news coverage shifts among regions and their priorities, allowing it, for example, to provide prime-time viewers in China with news relevant to them at 8:00 p.m. The concept has been so successful that CNN International felt compelled to add an anchor to prime-time evening hours broadcasting out of Abu Dhabi.

Al Jazeera English's coverage also offers more balance and nuance. For example, in referring to the July 2013 events in Egypt, Al Jazeera Arabic regularly calls the change in government a "coup," while the English channel calls it a "military-led overthrow of Morsi."

While Al Jazeera English as well as Al Jazeera America have been gaining in prestige, the Arabic station has not fared as well. For years, Al Jazeera Arabic's critics have been wondering how the privately owned, but Qatari-subsidized network would cover a purely Qatari news story. The question remained unanswered simply because nothing newsworthy happened in the tiny Gulf state. The Al-Thani's succession from father to son in June 2013 was perhaps a big story, but despite its possible ramifications, it was mostly an internal affair. Recently, however, a major story about Qatar did break, and the once highly professional television news channel failed in its handling of it.