Articles
Waging Peace, Pages 47-48
Avi Lewis Brings Al Jazeera English to Busboys and Poets
AL JAZEERA English staff members visited the 14th Street Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC on Jan. 21 to help their local audience get to know them. Before Busboys proprietor Anas “Andy” Shallal introduced Avi Lewis, co-host of Al Jazeera’s popular “Fault Lines” program, to the capacity crowd he plugged his independent bookstore at the entrance of Busboys restaurant. “Independent bookstores are a dying breed,” he said. “If you don’t support it, it will close down,” Shallal warned.
“We can always count on Al Jazeera English...What a difference real news makes,” Shallal said. The audience watched a promotional video explaining what Al Jazeera English does and how it has covered the U.S. and the world during the first year of the Obama presidency. Launched in November 2006, Al Jazeera English now has 130 million viewers in 100 countries around the world. A staff of 1,000 comprising nearly 50 nationalities makes Al Jazeera English’s newsroom one of the world’s most diverse. The international network broadcasts news and current affairs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from four strategically located broadcast centers: Doha, Qatar; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; London, England; and Washington, DC.
When Lewis asked audience members if they watched the channel, nearly every hand shot up. “Let cable operators know that there is an appetite for Al Jazeera English,” he urged. Lewis said he hopes audiences will insist that cable companies across North America make the channel available to their local subscribers.
Lewis then moderated a sometimes heated and always lively question-and-answer discussion with Al Jazeera English writer and producer Laila Al-Arian, producer Imad Musa and news editor Paul Werdel. Asked what the difference is between Al Jazeera and Al Jazeera English, Lewis said he was proud of each. They work in two different markets, he explained, with two different editorial teams. Al Jazeera caters to 300 million Arabs, and their headline stories might or might not coincide with those of Al Jazeera English.
When asked about Qatar government funding, Lewis compared Al Jazeera English to the BBC, which is funded by United Kingdom government but keeps programming 100 percent independent.
Al Jazeera English’s editorial staff have the opportunity to have real input into the stories they produce, the speakers emphasized. When they covered Haiti’s earthquake, for example, they researched Haitian history to provide viewers with an in-depth analysis and political context not available in network news reports. Al Jazeera English reported on real people and got the story right. For instance, Al Jazeera English avoided the term “looting” because the staff agreed the term incorrectly described what people were doing to survive, Al Arian said.
While other U.S. stations are covering stories about Tiger Woods or Paris Hilton, or other celebrity-driven insanity, important international news from Iran or elsewhere is drowned out. It’s important to give everyone a chance to get a different world view, Imad Musa said.
The award-winning 24-hour news channel is now available in DC and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs—the first major metropolitan area in the nation—on the Comcast (Channel 275), Cox (Channel 474), and Verizon Fios (Channel 457) cable networks (as well as on some digital TVs). Globecast satellite also carries the channel, as does Burlington Cable in Vermont and Buckeye Cable in Ohio. Anyone can watch Al Jazeera English live on their computers, by visiting <www.livestation.com/aje> or <www.AlJazeera.net/English>. Thousands of online videos also are available on <www.youtube.com/aljazeeraenglish>.
—Delinda C. Hanley
