Al Jazeera International, the English language news and current affairs channel that’s sister channel to Al Jazeera Arabic (celebrating its 10th anniversary this month), launched on Wednesday 15 November at 1200 GMT. The new channel says that it is available in over 80 million cable and satellite households across the globe.
The channel was launched from its headquarters in Doha, with Shiulie Ghosh and Sami Zeidan the first news anchors to appear. The channel will move around the world moving to its broadcast centres strategically placed around the world in Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington DC where presenters Veronica Pedrosa & Teymoor Nabili, Felicity Barr & Stephen Cole, Ghida Fakhry & Dave Marash will present the news respectively. There will be two integrated news hours with input from all four centres.
On day one, the channels news teams are deployed doing stories in over 20 countries around the world in addition to their 60 news bureaux. In the Middle East, Al Jazeera has five correspondents deployed in Israel and the Palestinian territories; unprecedented Africa coverage with feeds from Darfur, Somalia, Harare and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, while in Latin America the channels correspondents will report live from Brazil and Venezuela. This reflects the emphasis the channel places on reporting from the South to the North.
Nigel Parsons Managing Director of Al Jazeera English said: “I am absolutely delighted to have launched Al Jazeera English. I firmly believe there is a gap in the market which we will exploit, and that the world needs Al Jazeera in English to bring a new perspective and understanding to world events. I would like to thank everyone involved in the project including all those distributors who are carrying the channel from day one.”
Al Jazeeras English language website, aljazeera.net/english also re-launched at 1200GMT on the same day to reflect the channel’s look and feel and editorial content. It showcases Al Jazeera English’s agenda setting editorial mission and will provide constantly updated coverage of news events from around the world, along with in-depth analysis and background. It will provide RSS feeds, live streams and downloadable clips from the Al Jazeera English channel, as well as interactive discussions and polling. Programme and presenter information as well as weather reports, live business data and sport will also be available via the website.