Count me among those excited to see what the new 24-hour Al Jazeera America has to offer viewers:
Al Jazeera’s approach — more time for more serious journalism — is an implicit criticism of the other options for news on television.
Mr. Mora said he had sensed far less commercial pressure at Al Jazeera than at local stations where he had worked. “There’s a sense here of the news being a public trust,” he said.
None of the anchors said they had felt any slant in coverage plans, pro-Qatar or otherwise, despite accounts from some former Al Jazeera English employees of interference from above.
In interviews, the anchors made offhand remarks that it is hard to imagine counterparts at other networks making. For instance, Ms. Chen asked: “How big does our audience need to be? I don’t know. Nobody talks about that here.”
She was scheduled to be in South Dakota over the weekend, filing stories from an Indian reservation.
“That’s not even a pitch I would have made in my old newsroom,” she said, because of budget limitations. “Here, we never have any debate about resources,” she said. “It’s like this: ‘Is that a good story?’ ‘Yes, it’s a good story.’ ‘Then go tell it.’ ”
Yes. GOD, yes. Halla-freakin-LOOYA, yes. After suffering through my gazillionth prognostication about whosgonnarunin2016 — this was “The Road to 2016″ on MSNBC’s “Up With Steve,” fer crissakes (et tu, Steve Kornacki?) — I was ready to give up watching the news completely. Two more years of this crap? You people serious? So someone’s actually going to put news on the air? Sign me up!
There’s been a lot of local interest in Al Jazeera because unlike CNN or Fox, they’ve actually got a Nashville bureau — and it’s headed by a veteran Nashville journalist, Jonathan Martin:
“They wanted to be in places that the other networks are not,” he explains. “For example, Nashville, New Orleans, Detroit — places that are respected cities, people know about them, there’s stuff going on, but there’s no one on the ground every day.”
God, yes. I am so sick of Honey Boo Boo and Kim Kardashian and whosgonnarunin2016HILLARYorCHRISTIEorRANDorSCOTT, I am sick of Balloon Boy and Sarah Palin and everything that happens in Hollywood, D.C. and New York catapulted to national importance whereas the rest of the nation is ignored unless it’s a mass shooting or natural disaster (and sometimes not even then).
I’m like a person who’s been lost in a cable news desert for years and just spied an oasis ahead. I hope it’s not a mirage.
Also? As the comments on the Scene story indicate, we’re sure to be treated to some comedy gold as the wingnuts freak out over Creeping Sharia and the eeevul lieberal media. Colbert and Jon Stewart will have fun documenting the atrocities.
Don’t disappoint me, AJAM!
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