Rivers of Exile

Al Jazzera English Rocks November 19, 2006

Posted by Delilah in : General, World, Media , trackback

I know, I know, been gone a while - a combination of being bored with the news and a lot of work. But, I have to comment of the arrival of Al Jazeera English on desktops everywhere. My own cable provider - Comcast - isn’t offering it but I went ahead and forked over $5.95 to check it out as soon as it launched.

Watching this is an entirely new experience for me - just as their most famous reporters have been saying on the promotion tours: this is truly unique in the world of English speaking news. The headlines pour in from around the world - with reporters on the groud and pics live: Palestine, Congo (Kinshasa, deep in a gold mine), Darfur, the Bush trip in Asia, etc. In that order from what I’ve seen so far - from the more acute down.

Overall, the atmosphere is very classy and neutral - the ads are particularly beautiful. I’d say sort of BBCish, with an extra dose of class and depth. Definitely far less euro/us centered that the BBC. This is another thing that seems to be true from the promotion hype: they give you the news of the world out there - minute by minute - from the details of post election Congo, to the turmoil in Mexico to Palestinians rushing in mass to protect a building from Israeli airstrikes to Indonesian protesting a Bush visit on the streets.

Those are the headlines, people, with - once again - live reporters on the ground!!! It’s extraordinary. If they keep this up, their slogan “setting the news agenda” will indeed prove very true because, truly, the competition will either scramble to catch-up or crumble. Thank you Qatar.