“To put it bluntly, the channel that’s on now — while excellent, and I plan to be a lifetime viewer — is not the channel that I signed up to do,” Mr. Marash, a former “Nightline” correspondent, said in his first interview since his departure was reported by The Guardian newspaper on Wednesday.

Mr. Marash said that the headquarters in Doha provided more and more direction about the assignment of stories and the point of view of news coverage, which meant that the main news bureaus — not only in Washington, but also in London and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — saw their autonomy shrink. This meant that the English-language channel started to more closely resemble its larger sibling, the prominent Arabic-language channel Al Jazeera, he said.

“They started covering the whole world very well, but from the point of view and the interests of Doha and the surrounding region,” he said.

On Wednesday The Guardian reported that the channel’s leaders in Doha “are believed to want to see resources concentrated on consolidating popularity among its heartland audience” in the Middle East. The newspaper said that more than 15 staff members of Al Jazeera English “have quit or resigned in recent months amid complaints of a lack of clarity over its direction, contractual disputes and speculation over a relaunch later this year.”