More in-depth story telling, a focus on underreported news, powerful images and videos. That is what differentiates Al Jazeera America from other traditional news cable outlets like FOX, CNN and MSNBC, network officials.

Members of the Al Jazeera America network joined SMU student media for a panel discussion Wednesday afternoon to explain its news operation and philosophy. Prime time news anchor John Seigenthaler, executive vice president of communications Dawn Bridges and producer Mary Caraccioli were members of the network in attendance.

Caraccioli believes it is the network’s approach to telling a story and asking the hard questions about leading issues, like the U.S. occupation in Gaza, that make Al Jazeera standout from its competitors.

“We get to the heart of issues,” Caraccioli said, “putting our boots on the ground across the U.S. where no other networks are going to invest.”

More than 20 faculty and students were in attendance at the discussion in the journalism wing in Umphrey Lee Student Center.

The network officials said they use a different approach to news, focusing more on producing content that takes an in-depth look at the most pressing news stories of the day, but also on stories that often go underreported.

“The goal isn’t just the number of eyeballs,” Bridges said. “It is also to bring stories to light and issues to light that might not otherwise be known.”

For instance, they say they have more journalists stationed in hot spots around the world than other news organizations and pointed to their in-depth coverage of Gaza and Ukraine.

“We were adding bureaus and adding staff when [other] people were cutting,” Seigenthaler said.

Al Jazeera America was launched in August 2013 after the company purchased the CurrentTV network for $500 million. CurrentTV was launched by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt in August 2005. The channel announced in January 2013 that it sold itself to Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera Media Network.

The Al Jazeera Media Network is based in New York and has 70 bureaus around the country and world, including one in Dallas.

Bridges said that the news organization is not worried about the bottom-line or corporate profit and is instead focusing on getting the business up and running.

However, the U.S. expansion has been both difficult and expensive for the network, which averages about 17,000 prime time viewers, according to an August report in the Columbia Journalism Review.

The low viewership could be contributed to the few cable providers that carried CurrentTV and, more notably, the doubts that some Americans may have about the organization’s association with the Middle East.

The Al Jazeera Media Network is owned by the state of Qatar, where the network originated in the 1990’s. Since then, it has gone global.

It was the choice of Al Jazeera Arabic to run tapes after 9/11 of Osama bin Laden defending and justifying attack that cemented the connection for many Americans between the news network and the Middle East. In the tapes, Bin Ladin claims, “America has been hit by Allah at its most vulnerable point, destroying, thank God, its most prestigious building.”

The U.S. government accused Al Jazeera of engaging in propaganda on behalf of terrorists, but Al Jazeera said that it was only making the informational available to the public.

Bridges noted that any other news organization, like CNN, would have run the footage if it received the tapes first.

Students in the discussion expressed concerns about the network’s funding from the Qatari royal family and its influence on media coverage.

“What guarantees this separation in the network?” senior Christopher Saul asked.

Seigenthaler, who was formerly an anchor for “NBC Nightly News,” said that reporters still have editorial independence from the network’s founding country.

Caraccioli stated that just because the network has an Arabic name and icon does not mean the company is biased or has a Middle Eastern focus.

“We don’t stray, we plow straight ahead,” she said. “We make sure the story is shown in a fair and in an in-depth way.”

Al Jazeera America hopes to remarket itself over time to a younger generation more open-minded and unafraid of the network’s origins.

The network hopes to accomplish this through in-depth reporting and a digital strategy that encompasses smartphones.

The Al Jazeera America staff is looking forward to the future of their news organization.

“It’s been a ride and we’re just starting,” Seigenthaler said.