BOB GARFIELD: From WNYC in New York this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Despite the focus here on embeds and video phones, the big media story in Iraq centers on Al Jazeera, the news channel based in Qatar that is not only the most cited news source in the region, but increasingly around the world. Here's one measure of its popularity -- the search engine Lycos reported that Al Jazeera was the top search term last week, with three times more searches than "sex."

BOB GARFIELD:But Al Jazeera is also hugely unpopular with people like Donald Rumsfeld who objected to grisly pictures of American POWs broadcast by the channel and Iraqi officials who don't like Al Jazeera's aggressive reporting tactics. In fact, this week the Iraqi government booted one of Al Jazeera's reporters from Baghdad, prompting the channel to suspend much of its coverage in Iraq. This setback follows Al Jazeera's recent ejection from the New York Stock Exchange and hacker attacks on its English language web site. Joanne Tucker is managing editor of the English language web site. She's on the line from Doha, Qatar. Joanne, welcome back to On the Media!

JOANNE TUCKER: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

BOB GARFIELD: Has Al Jazeera gotten an official explanation about why its reporters were kicked out of the country or asked not to report?

JOANNE TUCKER: The reasons given for this directive from the Iraqi information ministry was that they did not like Diyar Al-Omri who is our reporter and who was our exclusive reporter in Afghanistan. They did not like his reports from Nejev in the south.

BOB GARFIELD: What were their objections?

JOANNE TUCKER:They specifically did not like his reports where he made the claim that Iraqi forces were shielding themselves behind holy sites. They did not appreciate any negative criticism in his report.

BOB GARFIELD:This isn't the first time that Al Jazeera has run afoul of authoritarian regimes in the Arab world. But it's puzzling, because with its heavy focus on civilian casualties in this war, it seemed like the Iraqi regime's campaign for hearts and minds of its own people was benefitting from Al Jazeera's presence. Were you surprised that this one isolated report would result in these sanctions?

JOANNE TUCKER: We didn't expect it, but we're not entirely surprised. This expulsion I think reflects negatively on the government -- not on us. We have nothing to lose. If they lose our voice, from Nejev or anywhere else or even another voice from Baghdad, I think they lose out more than we do.

BOB GARFIELD:Let's talk about your project, the English language web site. You launched it early last week, but within 24 hours the site was hit by hackers, and since then it's been virtually impossible for those on the internet to view your site. Do you know what happened?

JOANNE TUCKER: We do know what happened. Within 10 to 12 hours of going live on line, our servers --one in the United States and one in Europe --were bombarded with legitimate server requests that basically flooded the decisions server and blocked access to the site. Following that, within a couple of days, 2 to 3 days, somebody got hold of our domain name. The very fact that these hacking attacks are so huge and so directed at our server actually completely undermines the whole idea of democracy and freedom. What kind of liberation of minds and, you know, people is it if a country or-- hacking attacks originating in that country can't take a different point of view?

BOB GARFIELD:From your answer I suggest that you don't entirely dismiss the rumors that have been--flying around the internet that this was somehow actually a CIA job -- that the U.S. government itself went in to hack the site. Of course the other possibility is that some bored teenager someplace in the suburbs did it. What are your suspicions?

JOANNE TUCKER: We doubt very much it's a bored teenager from the suburbs simply because the amount of band width being used to hack our site -- be it Arabic or English -- on a daily, hourly basis -- has been very extensive. I'm not saying it's a government job, but it's very professional, and-- it's-- also backed up by the fact that a few days ago we found another U.S.-based company that basically wrote us a letter on the 28th of March saying they were delighted to take our site over, and they were going to deliver the site to thousands of local servers, worldwide so that it would be har--far harder to hack us. Three days later, that very same company withdrew and just terminated the contract, point blank. There is a huge amount of political pressure being applied somewhere on these companies.

BOB GARFIELD:Had the web site not been hacked, would we have been seeing those controversial images of the dead American soldiers and the prisoners of war being paraded for public view?

JOANNE TUCKER: The actual story that we ran on the English web site showed a picture of one dead U.S. serviceman on the ground and showed two of the U.S. POWs. We reported it, I thought, in a very straight, down-the-middle kind of way.

BOB GARFIELD:But is it also possible that considering the perceived sympathies towards the Arab point of view that these images, as aired on Al Jazeera were viewed as a sort of gloating?

JOANNE TUCKER: They were not gloating. Without doubt, the pictures of the dead on the ground were uncomfortable to watch, but I keep bringing up the point -- how many now hundreds of Iraqi civilians have been killed with very, very, very disgusting images -- images that we have broadcast -- and of course it would break the heart of any American person who probably knew those soldiers to see thos pictures. I do not at all say that those pictures of the dead should have been aired. But the POW pictures were not humiliating in any shape or form. You know it would have given me hope if I was anyway connected to these Americans to see them alive, to see them well, and to see them a little bit afraid but to see them okay.

BOB GARFIELD:Allow me to share with you the headlines from your web site shortly before it was hacked. The first is: "Iraq Hit by a New Wave of Attacks." The second: "Basra on the Verge of Humanitarian Crisis." The third: "U.S. Precision Bomb Destroys Civilian Bus." Speaking for myself personally, and I happen to be ambivalent about this war, I seethe when I look at the Al Jazeera site for the very reason that its raison d'etre is to be a revolutionarily objective source for news about the Arab world. It strikes me that especially in wartime, Al Jazeera has a special responsibility to play it straight down the middle and not to reflect back the world view of its audience--

JOANNE TUCKER: But we're not just looking at ourselves and reflecting what we see in the mirror. Yes, we do take the temperature of the region and take what they say far more seriously and far more into account than, you know, your western TV does. Does this mean we skew the news? I don't think you can say that if you honestly and intelligently reflect the opinions and the facts and the views of this part of the world, how can it be skewing the news any more than reflecting the West's views and opinions skews the news for western watchers? Can a person be 100 percent objective? I don't think so. I haven't seen it. I keep hearing about this holy grail of objectivity and neutrality; I certainly don't see it on, on American television. So, you know, how they can apply these standards to us all the time, I don't know. But we try and report as honestly and as you say, as revolutionarily -- meaning probing taboos, crossing red lines as often as we can. Does this get us in hot water? All the time. But I think this is a price worth paying.

BOB GARFIELD: Well Joanne, thank you very much.

JOANNE TUCKER: Thank you so much. Thanks, Bob.

BOB GARFIELD:Joanne Tucker is the managing editor of Al Jazeera's new English language web site which is back on line after a major hacker attack. She joined us from her office in Doha, Qatar. [MUSIC]