Al-Jazeera America will launch soon

Since it purchased Current TV at the beginning of the year, Al Jazeera has been building a large news organization in the US. With close to 1,000 employees, about a dozen bureaus around the country, and several high-profile hires, Al Jazeera America (AJA) is "more than ready" for its US launch on August 20th, says interim CEO Ehab Al Shihabi. Because it picked up Current's distribution, it will reach just shy of 50 million people at launch — but several big cable companies like Time Warner won't be airing the channel.

Shihabi says that the 24-hour channel will focus on hard news, telling journalists last week that "there will be less opinion, less yelling and fewer celebrity sightings." The channel, which is privately owned and funded by the government of Qatar, is also claiming it will eschew big profits by airing fewer commercials — six minutes per hour, less than half the industry standard. AJA will launch with a few well-known TV journalists as well, including Soledad O'Brian, David Shuster, and John Seigenthaler. ..

AJA won't be focusing primarily on the middle east, however; instead it plans on devoting time to covering issues in the US. The network plans on airing fourteen hours of "daily live news" alongside more long-form reporting than what's aired on other cable channels. In fact, AJA executives haven't been shy about comparing themselves to other cable networks. Shahabi says that "we are not infotainment" and Al Jazeera America president Kate O'Brian says the network will "stay away from pundits and crazy celebrity news." ..

The Verge: Al Jazeera promises 'in-depth news' with new US cable network launching August 20th

I never liked CNN too-too much. And Fox News, Headline News, Univision, and others are all sort of the same. From what I remember, Al-Jazeera is actually pretty good, hard-hitting stuff. Violent if anything.

But so, Al-Jazeera English might be shutting down so this can take its place. And that it will focus on more U.S. issues, than just Middle-East issues.

"We are not infotainment."

Thoughts?

Good. AJ and the BBC both put the American news media to shame. Hope they do well.

I think it's far more likely that the American media landscape will corrupt Al-Jazeera, versus the possibility that Al-Jazeera will redeem American cable news. No matter how hard-hitting they are, no matter how high their standards, as long as they still plan to sell commercials, it's only a matter of time before the sales department is dictating the format -- and eventually the content -- of Al-Jazeera America. This is American cable television we're talking about, after all.

Well, the people from the Middle East (Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Turkey, the Levant, the Arabian peninsula, and Arab North Africa) were one of the fasted growing and educated segments of immigration.

If Univision News can exist in the US and BBC News can exist in the US why not have an Middle Eastern perspective.

Good. Al-Jazeera is fantastic.

Al Jazeera (english) has been kind of the gold standard for English-language TV journalism for the past few years, and I have little doubt that Al Jazeera will be the most sober, unbiased news available in the U.S. Unfortunately, hardly any cable and satellite companies will carry it and I guarantee you any news story that they break will get no traction in the mainstream because the corporate-owned media is scared to death of the possibility that people will find out there's serious journalism going on elsewhere on television. Anytime an Al Jazeera America story gets discussed, I expect to see and hear a lot scare emphasis on the name Al Jazeera and never will they let somebody bring up that name without mentioning that it's owned by Arabs and therefore everything they cover must be met with a special level of skepticism.

awesome

I dont want to listen to no islam news.

@chrissedoff: the only one confirmed not to carry it so far is time warner afaik.

Healthy press has multiple sources with multiple sources so I'm all for adding another with a different view point. I just hope the "market" is large enough to support this many news companies.

Each with multiple sources of their own.

I've had Al-Jazeera English here in Sweden for about a decade now, and it's a great channel. I kinda prefer BBC or Euronews (their "No Comment" videos are just fantastic), but it's up there with CNN, Deutsche Welle and Sky News as news outlets I try to keep up with in order to complete the picture a bit.

Yeah I read an article a while back about how much in fighting there has been about how much to fox and cnn it up. Sounded like a lot of resistance from the journalists and that kinda thing but the people pulling the strings were getting nervous about how popular the channel might be. I also read that al jazeera isn't quite the same as it used to be during the Iraq years, a change of ownership which means the Qatar royal family now own and have much more influence over it? Actually it seems they don't have direct control anymore but may still influence it a lot. Eh I don't really know.

People raise concerns about whether or not the they can stay independent with the Qatar Royal Family owning it but I wonder why no one has concerned about Turner or Murdoch with their news? Although not "blue blood" they also have a lot of "interests".

You're saying people don't have serious concerns about Murdoch's influence on his news and many other things? What?

No I'm saying they ask this of AJ but ignore it for CNN And Fox. We should constantly be suspicious and asking if a news company can sustain their editorial independence not just form the new guy but from all of them.

Bad part is they're taking down the online livestream of Al Jazeera English, pretty much the only news source I have in video form.

I don't understand. Are you saying people are not always talking about the influence people like Murdoch have on the world and the obvious bias Fox news has?

Let's hope it doesn't become as biased as the Arabic version

Wait didn't the Qatari Royal Family abdicate control of the station in 2011? Wikipedia told me that so I don't know.

Let's just hope the standard is maintained and not diminished.

Al-Jazeera English is an amazing source of news. I'd even put it above the BBC.

I just hope they don't fall into the American problem of chasing ratings. Every station starts out saying they'll only do one thing well, and they all fall and start doing celebrity & reality TV at some point.

A-rabs controllin' the TeeVee of decent god lovin' white folk? Ladies and gentlemen the terrorists have WON. Thanks Obama. Pretty soon we'll start lettin' gays vote, mark my words.

to be fair, there's logo so the gays already won

@animasta said:

They've won the battle, but not the war. I won't have my grand daughters marryin ducks. #StraightWhiteRights

at first I thought you were linking to duck dynasty and I would've been with you

@bestusernameever said:

I really hope this doesn't affect English viewers outside of the US. It sounds like they might be restructuring a lot of their English content around AJA though, so I'm not super optimistic.

It doesn't affect anyone else, just U.S. audiences, U.S. cable companies don't want 'competing' online streams of the same service when they're on cable. It's dumb and clearly illustrates how behind the curve cable is.