The production level has been neglected in current scholarship on global news contra-flows. Al Jazeera English (AJE) is a resourceful, multi-newsroom satellite news channel with an ambitious, alternative editorial agenda that poses practical challenges and conflicts. Based on 35 qualitative interviews with channel management and editorial members of staff, document analysis and observation of editorial meetings, the present article examines the employees’ reflections on these challenges during its first years on air. It problematizes the extent to which AJE should follow the western-led mainstream news cycle as opposed to creating an alternative agenda. Furthermore, discussions about who should be invited to represent ‘the other’ opinion among AJE’s news sources reveal diverging sourcing strategies and conflicting conceptions of which opinions should be represented on the channel. These dilemmas are symptoms of the structural contradictions in the AJE project aiming to implement an alternative, southern news perspective while maintaining professional journalistic standards.