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Al Jazeera English

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Al Jazeera English
HeadquartersBroadcast Centers: Doha, Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington D.C.
Ownership
OwnerAl Jazeera

Al Jazeera English is a 24-hour English-language news and current affairs TV channel headquartered in Doha, Qatar. It is one of the three largest English-language news channels worldwide, and is the sister channel of the Arab-language Al Jazeera.

The station broadcasts news features and analysis, documentaries, live debates, current affairs, business, and sports. The station claims to be the first global high-definition television network.[citation needed].

Al Jazeera English is the world’s first English-language news channel headquartered in the Middle East[1]. The channel aims to provide both a regional voice and a global perspective to a potential world audience of over one billion English speakers, but without an Anglo-American worldview.[2] Instead of being run under central command, news management rotates around broadcasting centres in Kuala Lumpur, Doha, London and Washington, DC, "following the sun."

The station also aims "to give voice to untold stories, promote debate, and challenge established perceptions", and to "set the news agenda, bridging cultures and providing a unique grassroots perspective from under-reported regions around the world".[3]

Philosophy

Al Jazeera English has stated objectives of emphasizing news from the developing world, of "reversing the North to South flow of information" and of "setting the news agenda". The latter is the channel's main slogan. Some observers, including media scholar Adel Iskandar, have commented that this focus can be seen, in the eyes of Western viewers, as casting Al Jazeera English as a global "alternative" news network, though the entire Al Jazeera brand has been heavily mainstreamed in many parts of the world.[4] Other Al Jazeera English slogans and catchphrases include: "All the News | All the Time", "Fearless Journalism" and "If it's newsworthy, it gets on air, whether it's Bush or Bin Laden." Al Jazeera's Code of Ethics mirrors some of these statements. The English brand identity and its "EVERY ANGLE | EVERY SIDE" promotional positioning was led by Director of Creative, Morgan Almeida.."to preserve the amazing Arabic heritage and extend this in a language familiar to diverse global audiences".

Launch and reach

The channel was launched on 15 November 2006. It had aimed to commence global broadcasting in June 2006 but had to postpone its launch because its HDTV technology was not ready.[5] The channel was due to be called Al Jazeera International, but the name was changed nine months prior to launch when it was absorbed into the Network administration.[6]

The channel had expected to reach around 40 million households, but it far exceeded that launch target, reaching 80 million homes.[7] As of 2009, Al Jazeera's English-language service can be viewed in every major European market, and is available to 130 million homes in over 100 countries via cable and satellite, according to Molly Conroy, a spokeswoman for the network in Washington. [8] It is one of the three largest global English language 24 hour news channels, the other two being BBC World and CNN International.[9]

However the channel is noted for its poor penetration in the North American market, where it is not carried by almost all cable networks except local networks in Toledo, Ohio, and Burlington, Vermont.[10] It has begun a campaign to enter the North American market, including a dedicated website IwantAJE.com.

In 2008 Al Jazeera's English language channel has won the The Golden Nymph award in the category of Best 24 Hour News Programme at the Monte Carlo Television Festival. The jurors especially singled out Nour Odeh, Al Jazeera's Gaza correspondent, for her bravery in reporting from the Gaza Strip. Al Jazeera English also received nominations in several other news categories, as for example for the Best News Documentary award for the report Inside Myanmar – The Crackdown.[11]

The channel is also currently available for viewing online. The channel recommends online viewing via Livestation, a free software (live, high quality), at its website (live, low quality), or at its YouTube channel.[12]

Programmes

Regular/recurrent programmes on the channel are:

  • 101 East - weekly show hosted by Teymoor Nabili; Asian politics, business and current affairs
  • 48 - "In one city with only 48 hours, Amanda Palmer shows you the highs and lows of city living."
  • Everywoman - hosted by Shiulie Ghosh; "Everywoman is the first show of its kind from the Middle East to put women’s issues at its core. Its strong stories with universal appeal ensure that this will be compelling viewing for men and women alike."
  • The Fabulous Picture Show (FPS) - Motion picture/entertainment show hosted by Amanda Palmer
  • Frost Over The World - hosted by Sir David Frost; "Frost Over the World brings together a diverse range of guests to discuss the week’s current affairs."
  • Inside Iraq - hosted by Jasim Al-Azzawi, "Inside Iraq is a weekly debate programme offering opinions from a diverse range of guests on Iraq."
  • Inside Story - "analysis, background, and context on the day's top story"
  • Listening Post - hosted by Richard Gizbert; Al Jazeera English revisits and reviews how other news organizations covered the news that week and presents viewer-submitted news
  • News:
  • World news live from Al Jazeera's Kuala Lumpur broadcast centre
  • World news live from Al Jazeera's Doha broadcast centre
  • World news live from Al Jazeera's London broadcast centre
  • World news live from Al Jazeera's Washington DC broadcast centre
  • Newshour - an hour of world news hosted from three of Al Jazeera's four broadcast centres, linked together live: 09:00GMT edition from Doha/Kuala Lumpur; 15:00GMT edition from Doha/London; 18:00GMT edition from Doha/London/Washington DC
  • News headlines are broadcast generally every half hour

In addition to the above, Al Jazeera English runs various programmes that are either entirely non-recurrent or consist of just a limited number of parts (miniseries format).

Also cf. the channel's Programmes and Programme Schedule pages.

International bureau

In addition to its four broadcast centres, Al Jazeera English has 21 supporting bureaux which gather and produce news. It also shares resources with the Arabic language channel's 42 bureaux and is planning to add further bureaux, to be announced as they open.[13]

Middle East

Broadcast Centre: Doha (map)
Anchors: Jane Dutton, David Foster, Imran Garda, Shiulie Ghosh, Darren Jordon, Maryam Nemazee, Sohail Rahman, Kamahl Santamaria, Lauren Taylor and Sami Zeidan
Correspondents: Hoda Abdel-Hamid, Hashem Ahelbarra, James Bays, John Cookson, Clayton Swisher, Sherine Tadros, Nadim Baba, Imran Kahn, and Mike Hanna.

Bureaux & Correspondents
Beirut: Rula Amin, Zeina Khodr
Jerusalem: Jacky Rowland
Gaza: Ayman Mohyeldin and Sherine Tadros
Ramallah: Nour Odeh
Tehran: Alireza Ronaghi

Africa

Bureaux: Cairo, Abidjan, Nairobi, Johannesburg, and Harare.

Correspondents: Amr El Kahky, Haru Mutasa, Mohammed Adow, Mohamad Vall, Yvonne Ndege

Europe

Broadcast Centre: London (map)
Anchors: Nick Clark, Felicity Barr, Stephen Cole, Julie MacDonald and Barbara Serra
Correspondents: Alan Fisher, Richard Bestic, Tim Friend, Nazanine Moshiri

Bureaux & Correspondents:
Athens: Barnaby Phillips
Moscow. Neave Barker

The Americas

Broadcast Centre: Washington DC (map)
Anchors: Ghida Fakhry, Anand Naidoo, Shihab Rattansi and Kimberly Halkett
Correspondents: Rosiland Jordan, Nick Spicer, Kimberly Halkett and Rob Reynolds

Bureaux & Correspondents:
Bogota: Monica Villamizar
Buenos Aires: Lucia Newman, Teresa Bo and Gabriel Elizondo
Caracas: Mariana Sanchez and Lucrecia Franco
New York: Kristen Saloomey, John Terret
Mexico City: Franc Contreras

Asia and Australasia

Broadcast Centre: Kuala Lumpur (map)
Anchors: Teymoor Nabili, Divya Gopalan, Hamish Macdonald and Veronica Pedrosa
Correspondents: Hamish Macdonald, Tony Birtley, David Hawkins, Casey Kauffman and Selina Downes

Bureaux & Correspondents
Beijing: Tony Cheng and Melissa Chan
Islamabad: Kamal Hyder
Jakarta: Step Vaessen
Sydney: Dan Nolan
Delhi: Matt Mcclure
Manila: Marga Ortigas

Personalities and staff

Personalities who have joined the channel include[14] (previous employers in brackets):

File:Aljazeerainternational.png
Initial name and logo for the English-language channel

Recruitment

Veteran British broadcaster Sir David Frost joined Al Jazeera English[15] to host his show Frost Over the World.

Former BBC and CNN anchor Riz Khan, who previously had been the host of the CNN talk show Q&A, also joined. He hosts his shows Riz Khan and Riz Khan's One on One.

Former U.S. Marine Josh Rushing joined Al Jazeera in September 2005.[16] He had been the press officer for the United States Central Command during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, and in that role had been featured in the documentary Control Room. When subsequently joining Al Jazeera, Rushing commented that "In a time when American media has become so nationalized, I'm excited about joining an organization that truly wants to be a source of global information..."[17] Rushing works from the Washington, DC broadcasting centre.

Former CNN and BBC news anchorwoman and award winning journalist Veronica Pedrosa also joined the team[18], along with CNN producer James Wright, and Kieran Baker, a former editor and producer for CNN, who most recently was Acting General Manager, Communications and Public Participation for ICANN. On 2 December 2005, Stephen Cole, a senior anchor on BBC World and Click Online presenter, announced he was joining Al Jazeera International.[19]

The network announced on 12 January 2006 that former Nightline correspondent Dave Marash would be the co-anchor from their Washington studio. Marash described his new position as "the most interesting job on Earth."[20] On 6 February 2006, it was announced that the former BBC reporter Rageh Omaar would host the daily weeknights documentary series, Witness.[21]

The managing director for Al Jazeera English is Tony Burman, who replaced Nigel Parsons in May 2008.[22]

Availability

The channel is available in many countries, mostly via satellite, sometimes via cable. The channel is also available online. It can be streamed live worldwide for free through Livestation. A low quality RealVideo stream allows viewing. Free streaming is also available through Zattoo, currently limited to a number of Western European Countries.

Online subscriptions allowing unlimited viewing may be purchased from Al Jazeera on Jump TV, Real, VDC. Headlines from Al-Jazeera English are available on twitter. According to the Al Jazeera English Watch Now webpage, not all services are available everywhere due to licensing/distribution restrictions.

The New York Times on 16 April 2007 reported that Al Jazeera English would begin running segments from its shows on the Internet video-sharing site YouTube.[23]. Al Jazeera YouTube site.

Al Jazeera English is available in the UK and Ireland on Sky's digital satellite platform on channel 514.

In the United States, Al Jazeera is available on Buckeye Cable (Channel 220) in Toledo, Ohio. It is also available in Burlington, Vermont, Houston, Texas, and Washington, DC.[24] The channel is not widely available on cable and was dropped by Comcast, a cable company with a subscriber base of over 12 million people, a month prior to the channel's launch due to "the already-saturated television market there" and a perception in some circles that the channel gives airtime to terrorists.[25][26] However, Al Jazeera English is available via satellite across all of North America free to air on Galaxy 19 on the Ku band in DVB format. In New Zealand, Triangle TV re-broadcasts various Al Jazeera programmes in Auckland and Wellington on free-to-air UHF channels. As does Stratos (free-to-air over Freeview satellite and terrestrial).

The channel initially began test streaming Al Jazeera English (then called "Al Jazeera International") in March 2006 on Hot Bird, Astra 1E, Hispasat, AsiaSat3S, Eurobird 1 and Panamsat PAS 10. Telenors Thor, Türksat and Eurobird 2 were added to the satellites carrying it. Eurobird 1 carried the test stream on frequency 11.681 under the name "AJI".

Quotations

These are some quotes from Al Jazeera staff that were broadcast on Al Jazeera English:

Josh Rushing: "Do the right thing, for the right reason. And that's what I see Al Jazeera doing."

Josh Rushing: "I care more about the truth, and getting the truth in my story, than I do about controlling the message, like I did before when I was a spokesperson."

Dave Marash: "We're gonna seek out the areas neglected by the Western-oriented media."

Rageh Omaar: "I think one thing you can definitely say about Al Jazeera is that it will and does evoke a reaction."

Riz Khan: "In my lifetime as a journalist, there will not be another channel launched on this scale."

Barbara Serra: "If it's newsworthy, it gets on air, whether it's Bush or Bin Laden."

Bob Geldof: "I say what I like, I'm not beholden to anyone, if you don't like it, f— [inaudible] off." [27]

Trivia

  • Although Al Jazeera English is produced in HD, the output is converted to 14:9 SD similar to BBC World. However the programmes that are shown on the Al Jazeera English YouTube channel are shown in their original 16:9 format.
  • When Al Jazeera English was launched on November 15, 2006, its broadcast was also simulcast on Al Jazeera Arabic. Strangely, Al Jazeera Arabic had shown the 16:9 original feed of the channel and not the usual 14:9 broadcast feed.[28]
  • On 13 December 2006, Comedy Central's Daily Show ran a piece of comic-correspondent Samantha Bee visiting Al Jazeera English's Washington office and "rebuilding this network from the ground up."[29] A few hours after the segment aired, complete transcripts appeared on the blogosphere,[30] and subsequent Google searches of "Al Jazeera" "Daily Show" produced over 200,000 hits.[31]
  • In mid-December 2006, Al Jazeera English started running an advertisement announcing the then forthcoming Al Jazeera Documentary Channel, which was launched at midday on 1 January 2007.

See also

Competitors

References

  1. ^ Al-Jazeera says its English-language news channel will launch Nov. 15, The Post-Star published 1 November 2006
  2. ^ Al Jazeera's (Global) Mission, Fast Company, by Linda Tischler, published April 2006
  3. ^ Al Jazeera English - Corporate Profile
  4. ^ Is Al Jazeera Alternative? Mainstreaming Alterity and Assimilating Discourses of Dissent, by Adel Iskandar, Transnational Broadcasting Studies Journal, published 2005
  5. ^ Al Jazeera International targets June launch
    The Challenges of Working at Al-Jazeera, National Public Radio, Talk of the Nation, 26 June 2006
    Al Jazeera sets English launch date
  6. ^ Al-Jazeera renames English-language channel (registration required)
  7. ^ Al-Jazeera English hits airwaves, BBC News, published 15 November 2006
  8. ^ Al Jazeera provides an inside look at Gaza conflict
  9. ^ Al Jazeera English (YouTube online video by GOOD Magazine)
    The Editors: A new channel arrives (BBC News blog), by Richard Porter, published 15 November 2006
    BBC World dropped by Israeli satellite TV, The Guardian, by Tara Conlan, published 13 December 2006
  10. ^ Al-Jazeera English Struggles For U.S. Audience, National Public Radio, February 24, 2009
  11. ^ Al Jazeera English wins gong at TV festival, published 13. June 2008
  12. ^ Watch Al Jazeera English Live, iwantaje.com
  13. ^ Al Jazeera International reveals global line-up of bureaux, published 10 October 2006
  14. ^ News anchors: Doha, Kuala Lumpur, London, Washington
    News presenters - Doha
    Doha-based news presenters; press release with additional information
    News presenters - Kuala Lumpur
    News presenters - London
    News presenters - Washington
    Programme presenters
    Other news and programme presenters
  15. ^ David Frost joins al-Jazeera TV, BBC News, published 7 October 2005
  16. ^ Mission of Former Marine: Arab TV, by Nick Madigan and Annie Linskey, MediaChannel.org, via Wayback Machine
  17. ^ Josh Rushing, former U.S. marine, joins Al Jazeera International, AMEInfo, published 22 September 2005
  18. ^ "Veronica Pedrosa joins Al Jazeera". November 20, 2005. Retrieved 2006-06-03.
  19. ^ BBC's 'Peter Pan' joins al-Jazeera, Guardian Unlimited, by Chris Tryhorn, published 2 December 2005
  20. ^ Los Angeles Times[citation needed]
  21. ^ Farewell to the front line (for now), The Times, by Damian Whitworth, published 7 February 2006
  22. ^ Burman named al-Jazeera English MD, Guardian Unlimited, by Chris Tryhorn, published 14 May 2008
  23. ^ Now on YouTube: The Latest News From Al Jazeera, in English
  24. ^ Burlington one of few places to air Al Jazeera, Associated Press, Apr. 22, 2007
  25. ^ "Al Jazeera Meets American Resistance". Businessweek. Retrieved 2007-08-29.
  26. ^ "French Rescue Al-Jazeera Intl". Terror Television. Retrieved 2007-08-29.
  27. ^ Geldof is not an Al Jazeera employee, but a clip of him saying the above —during an interview for Riz Khan's One on One— is featured in Al Jazeera English's promos.
  28. ^ Al Jazeera English launch, simulcast on Al Jazeera Arabic
  29. ^ Samantha Bee's report on Al Jazeera English
  30. ^ Blog post including a transcript of the Daily Show's Al Jazeera English piece
  31. ^ Google search for "Al Jazeera" "Daily Show" - retrieved 17 December 2006; the number of returned results has since decreased

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