April 2012
5 posts
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Al Jazeera English adds nine million Indian homes... →
AJE will be available in an estimated 25 million Indian households.
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Boston Globe editorial praises @AJEnglish for not... →
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CS Monitor: Hitched to Qatar's rising star, Al... →
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AJE, among others, wins Peabody Award for Arab... →
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Mobiles Republic's popular free news app, News... →
March 2012
3 posts
Get excited...: What’s next? →
mohamed:
(Poster by Matt Jones on my office wall)
After 7.5 years at Al Jazeera, I’ve decided to move on to explore further opportunities. Having worked at the intersection of media, technology and entrepreneurship, I’m interested in exploiting the structural changes in the media industry…
“Perhaps the most common social media misstep news providers commit involves...”
– Justin Martin, writing in CJR.
Al Jazeera changes satellite frequencies to avoid... →
February 2012
1 post
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“P. Diddy and Ryan Seacrest are launching new cable channels soon. It’s hard to...”
– Julia Bricklin, writing about AJE on Forbes.com.
January 2012
12 posts
1 tag
Fault Lines showing in NYC yesterday
@AJEnglish is publicly engaging Americans through events. Showings of programs like Fault Lines are more common in DC, but are usually well-attended and give people a chance to meet staff and learn more about the channel — as well as learn more about the topics at hand.
EARTH-SHAKING FILM. For its first NYC screening, Al Jazeera English presents “Fault Lines:Crisis in the Horn of Africa,”...
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Richard Gizbert on Al Jazeera's reputation as "bin...
Speaking at the CIPR’s Maggie Nally Memorial Lecture, which was held at the UK Houses of Parliament, Richard Gizbert shared his views on how the negative association of Al Jazeera and Al Qaeda impacted AJE’s efforts. Gizbert is the presenter of AJE’s The Listening Post, a show about the media.
He shared some interesting insights, from the Bush administration’s...
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A Chinese version of @AJEnglish
An oped by Joe Nye in the @nytimes suggests the Chinese government’s 24 hour English language news channel is an AJE knock-off:
In 2009, Beijing announced plans to spend billions of dollars to develop global media giants to compete with Bloomberg, Time Warner and Viacom. China invested $8.9 billion in external publicity work, including a 24-hour Xinhua cable news channel designed to imitate...
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Was @AJEnglish doc on Bahrain an exception to the...
Badr al-Ibrahim wrote an insightful update on Bahrain for Al Akhbar English. He touched on the Bahraini regime’s success in its information war:
The Bahraini regime succeeded on two important fronts. The first was enforcing a media blackout of what was happening in Bahrain. This was particularly successful due to the absence of reporting on human rights violations in the Gulf-funded media,...
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Florida columnist suggests @AJEnglish gaining...
Paul Janensch, a former newspaper editor and professor of journalism, wrote a column in a Florida newspaper about changing perceptions of Al Jazeera English in the United States.
Only a few U.S. cable systems carry Al-Jazeera English — none in Florida, as far as I can tell.
But it is available from satellite TV services. And you can see it on its website, aljazeera.com
Some American pundits...
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Al Jazeera English to Premiere Guantanamo Bay... →
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Taking on cable expensive for tech firms
Business Insider reports why Microsoft doesn’t want to carry programming that competes with cable. It’s expensive and risky.
It’s easy for existing TV providers like Comcast to renew their contracts with content owners — both sides understand and trust each other, and Comcast is counting those expenses. To replace cable, tech companies would have to take on big new...
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Recent American journalism grad inspired by...
Kaitlin Loukides, a recent college graduate, wrote about her excitement over an internship at AJE.
Two weeks ago, I graduated from the University of Missouri with my degree in Broadcast Journalism in one hand, and an unpaid internship in the other.
Just yesterday, I was completely set to head out to Washington, D.C. to begin my internship with Al Jazeera English. Now, this particular news...
Is the Arabic channel a liability for AJE in the...
Oren Kessler, Middle East affairs correspondent for The Jerusalem Post, wrote an essay, entitled “The Two Faces of Al Jazeera.”
He overviews the well-known litany of complaints against AJ, from supporting Al Qaeda to its Islamist agenda and anti-Israel bias as evidenced in its special coverage of Samir Kuntar. He suggests this implicates AJE, which he says is a mix of qualified and...
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Syrian regime not happy with Al Jazeera
AJE’s James Bays interviewed Bassam Abu Abdullah, Baath Party member, on “Inside Syria”. He mentioned that Al Jazeera was excluded from Syria, while 136 journalists have been allowed in. Calling the Arab uprisings a “party” for AJ, he goes on to admit that he is not aware of whether AJE’s coverage was also “not objective.”
Do you say that the...
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The Daily Beast recommends watching @AJEnglish as... →
CBS Miami’s blog published a summary of this and gave AJE a prominent place. Interesting how such inter-media validation circulates.
December 2011
40 posts
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In case you missed it, here is @AJEnglish's 2011... →
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Setback for @AJEnglish in New Zealand?
The Spy Report posted recently that:
On 23 December, Stratos Television, the country’s only nationwide independent non-commercial channel ceased broadcasting. It had modelled itself on SBS and broadcast a mix of English-language news programmes from the likes of Al Jazeera and the ABC, foreign language content aimed at ethnic minorities, and locally-produced public service content.
...
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Does @AJEnglish have a larger audience than the...
Kim Andrew Elliott asks responding to Arnaud de Borchgrave’s piece proclaiming AJE ahead of the VOA and the BBC:
Better to measure the “number of bureaus and correspondents” of all of the BBG entities, not just VOA. Al Jazeera probably still has the advantage. And by what measure has Al Jazeera English “overtaken” the BBC? I’m sure that BBC World News still has...
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Detroit on the brink of bankruptcy, @AJEnglish...
The video was embedded online by Michigan Forward, a “non-profit organization specializing in creating progressive public policy initiatives for state and local governments.”
It is interesting to see how AJE’s videos are circulated, re-posted, in the US by advocacy groups. This is one way AJE is running an end around its lack of cable carriage, it appears. The question remains...
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Why isn't @AJEnglish on more US cable systems?
@Deggans poses this question after the network gets prestigious award.
The St. Petersburg Times TV critic wrote that AJE “was among 15 recipients announced for the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism’s Alfred I. DuPont Award, one of the most prestigious honors in broadcast journalism.” He called it a “major milestone.” The award was for a Fault...
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Qatari affirmative action at Al Jazeera?
The Doha-based network is planning to boost the hiring of Qataris.
Under a strategy launched by its new head, the pan-Arab channel will hire Qataris who hold a university degree, preferably in media or communication studies, be thoroughly knowledgeable about regional and international developments and be less than 30 years old, local daily Al Sharq reported today.
This is likely a response to...
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Should AJE worry about US cable deals?
Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, said in an interview with McKinsey & Co:
Over 5 or ten years, fiber optics and the wireless explosion will completely crush the business models of old media companies and industries. For companies focused on content and distribution, distribution just goes away.
This certainly makes sense. If we have the technologies to circumvent the middle man,...
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Reply Magazine names @aymanm among favorites.
This short write-up explains why:
Ayman Mohyeldin
The veteran Al Jazeera English correspondent, now with NBC, had already made his mark as a journalist during the trial of Saddam Hussein. When Al Jazeera’s broadcasting license was revoked during January’s protests in Tahrir Square, Mr. Mohyeldin kept on telling the world Egypt’s story, facing multiple incarcerations, and broadening the...
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Is @AJEnglish overshadowing VOA?
Arnaud de Borchgrave thinks so:
Al-Jazeera’s global television network has long surpassed the Voice of America in the number of bureaus and correspondents it has deployed all over the world. Its English-language programs and newscasts have even overtaken the world’s onetime leader BBC, shrunk by government cutbacks.
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Polarized discourse on Syria
There seems to be less space for nuance and critical thinking in the highly polarized online discussion over Syria — a sad reflection of the highly repressive regime and its criminalization of politics. While regime supporters antagonize any critic, this has sadly created a coterie of dissidents who similarly vilify anyone asking critical questions themselves. It’s been impacting...
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And it's available in 130 countries, has more than... →
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State of AJE in the United States
Yvonne Villarreal (@villarrealy) wrote a nice summary of AJE’s presence in the United States:
It’s a week of achievements for Al Jazeera English. In addition to receiving a duPont Award, the network announced Thursday that it now reaches 250 million homes — 5 million of those being in the U.S.
Five years after its launch, there are 130 countries that carry Al Jazeera English, but in...
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Looks like @AJEnglish added a DuPont award to its...
As reported earlier this week, AJE won a significant American prize in journalism: one of the annual Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards.
It is the first-ever DuPont win for Al Jazeera English, an international news network that is trying to make inroads in the United States. The award recognized an Al Jazeera report about the sluggish pace of recovery and reconstruction in Haiti six...
CCTV to compete with @AJEnglish for influence and...
Another major English language global news outlet is emerging. Will it challenge incumbents CNN-International, Sky News and the BBC, as well as growing up-starts AJE and RT? The field is an increasingly crowded one, and most newcomers are state-funded. This can make for an interesting news ecology, but can also diminish audiences for the more established players, which can be especially damaging...
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AP on Egypt reporter abuse; Khanfar on media and...
Magda Abu-Fadil put together an interesting list of news updates concurring Arab journalism. A few tidbits pertained to AJE.
The Associated Press reported that Egyptian troops were using brutal force against women and had “swept into buildings where television crews were filming and briefly detained journalists. They tossed the camera and equipment of an Al-Jazeera TV crew off the balcony of...
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The Race to Cover Kim Jong Il's Demise
Brian Stelter reports:
Mr. Kim’s death was reported just after 10 p.m. Eastern time on BBC World News and Al Jazeera English. CNN, then Fox, then MSNBC followed a few minutes later.
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Committee to Protect Journalists report on AJE... →
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Journalists under attack in Egypt, Al Ahram... →
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Iraq is still a war zone, @glcarlstrom reports
In one interesting photo from the recent ”flag-casing” ceremony in Baghdad to mark the final phase of the American withdrawal from Iraq, Carlstrom captured the empty chairs reserved for Iraqi leaders. The index cards marking who sits where also listed the bunker of choice in the case of an attack during the ceremony.
He noted the extensive security surrounding the event, as well as...
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Female War Correspondents
Haaretz carried an interesting piece critical of all the wonderment and trepidation that female war journalists face. It details the history and gives voice to other reporters who are equally frustrated with the built-in assumption that war reporting is more properly a man’s work. Yael Lavie also discussed the recent controversies and debates about this after Lara Logan was attacked and...
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An @latimes writer lists @AJEnglish among best TV...
In “Year in Review: Mary McNamara’s top TV of 2011,” a blog post, Al Jazeera makes the cut as one of the best TV offerings of 2011:
Al Jazeera: During this year’s rebellions in the Mideast, Americans found themselves glued to their laptops to watch on-the-ground coverage from Al Jazeera English. For a time, many lobbied to find it a permanent American home, which would be a very...
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An @AJEnglish producer, @evanchill, beaten by...
@usatoday reports (via @ap).
An American producer for Al Jazeera English, Evan Hill, was beaten by military police and his equipment confiscated, the network reported. Al Jazeera said he was not seriously hurt but said the network was “appalled by this act of violence” and demanded the return of Hill’s camera, phone and U.S. passport.
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Editorial by @FT links @AJEnglish US carriage woes...
An editorial yesterday criticized Lowe’s hardware for bowing to public campaigns based on a suspicion of all Muslims.
The Financial Times also pointed out that Al Jazeera’s English channel, which tries to “present a more balanced view of Muslims,” struggles to get aired in the United States. “In spite of its unparalleled coverage of the Arab uprising, few of...
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Letter from Congressmen cites @AJEnglish report on...
A letter from 18 members of the U.S. House of Representatives to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asks that that the U.S. pressure the Government of Sierra Leone to credibly investigate reports of corruption in the regulation of logging.
The letter cited a November 26, 2011 Al Jazeera English report documenting senior Sierra Leonean officials taking bribes to allow illegal and destructive...
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CBS News covers @AJEnglish "twinterview" with...
American network CBS news reported online that Al Jazeera English published an interview done over social media with a Somali militant group. The CBS piece read:
Al-Shabab’s big unveiling to the twitterverse happened Tuesday, when they engaged in a social network back-and-forth with Al Jazeera’s Nazanine Moshiri, who conducted what was later dubbed a “twinterview” with...
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BBC World News pens Comcast deal
This boosts American access to international news — or more specifically Comcast Xfinity subscribers in limited markets. This is an estimated increase of availability in 15 million households.
The Wrap reports:
BBC World News is currently available in about 6 million households, but this pact will extend it to nearly 15 million homes through Comcast’s Xfinity TV Service by the end of...
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PR firm to help @AJEnglish's image in the UK.
Americans are not the only ones who still see the channel as being a mouthpiece for terrorists.
Al Jazeera English renewed its agreement with Burson-Marsteller UK, a public relations and communications firm. B-M worked on a campaign to publicize the news channel’s fifth anniversary in November.
This move is intended to increase viewership in the UK. There remains some mistrust of the brand...
