Al-Jazeera English relocates to the U.S. border, ready to invade

By AARON BARNHART
McClatchy Newspapers
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Since its launch in 2006, Al-Jazeera English has become one of my essential sources for global news.

I say this despite the well-publicized departure in 2008 of its respected American-based anchor, Dave Marash, who complained about anti-Western bias on his way out the door.

I say this despite ongoing problems at the mother ship of Arabic Al-Jazeera, including the recent resignation of five female anchors in protest of the channel's restrictive dress code.

And I say it knowing that almost no one reading this can go to their TV sets and actually watch the thing.

Tony Burman is trying to change that last fact.

About Marash and the mother ship, there's not much he can do.Marash, a former "Nightline" correspondent, was signing off just as Burman, a 35-year veteran of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., was signing on as Al-Jazeera English's new managing director.

As for the Arabic channel, Burman says that's a completely separate entity, not his problem.

Since taking over, Burman has almost doubled Al-Jazeera English's reach to 200 million homes, mostly in Europe, Asia and Africa. He just negotiated a series of deals that put the channel on cable systems across Canada. Al-Jazeera English is now on cable in Washington, D.C., its first major U.S. market.

And Burman says that some highly prized viewers - those at the Obama White House - are reaching out to Al-Jazeera English.

Burman oversaw the channel's biggest journalistic coup, as it provided unmatched coverage of Israel's bombing of Gaza in early 2009. Just last month, eight Al-Jazeera staffers were on board the Turkish relief ship headed to Gaza when it was intercepted by Israeli commandos, and its English-language reporter Jamal Elshayyal provided riveting first-hand details of the attack.

I spoke with Burman recently via Skype from Doha, Qatar. An edited transcript follows.

Q. You are about to relocate your headquarters from Doha to Toronto. You're trying to build your brand in the U.S. How are you going to do that?

A. The broadcast pattern in Canada is often replicated in the United States because of the connections between the cable and satellite industries in the two countries. Simply because of the fact that it's now available throughout Canada - and, very importantly, throughout Washington - our hope is that all of the negative stereotypes that have been attached to Al-Jazeera will fade, as they clearly have faded elsewhere.

Q. But the process for greenlighting a cable channel in Canada goes through a national board. There is no equivalent for that in the United States. The BBC has been in exactly the same rut for years. It's widely distributed in Canada, but you can't get it here except for certain newscasts.

A. Understood. We realize this won't be an easy challenge. You win loyalty one viewer at a time, and you win support one company at a time. But we think there is a real appetite for coverage of the world among North Americans. This comes at a time when a lot of American news organizations, sadly, are cutting back their coverage of the world. The situation is ripe for Al-Jazeera English.

Also, the political climate in the U.S. is far different than two, three years ago. I think there is a real effort on the part of the Obama administration to reach out to parts of the world where Al-Jazeera, both Arabic and English, are very important.

The signals we're getting, certainly, from the Obama administration are a real positive belief on their part that developing a good working relationship with Al-Jazeera English is in everyone's interest. And if those signals can get to the cable and satellite companies, that will lessen some of their anxieties.

Even though we have yet to make a breakthrough with the major U.S. carriers - which I'm confident we will - there are a lot of Americans who are aware of us. Sixty percent of our Internet traffic comes from the U.S. During the Gaza invasion, our Livestation feeds were off the charts. I think there are a lot of Americans, especially in this post-Bush era, who realize that American interests are tied to understanding the wider world. I think we're on the right side of history here.

Q. The BBC made a decision to launch a one-hour newscast for its U.S. audience (7 EDT nightly, BBC America). Do you worry that there's only so much space in the U.S. market for global news, and the BBC is going to take all of it?

A. No. What the BBC offers is a British perspective on the world. What we offer is a global treatment of world affairs from a staff of more than 1,000 people from 50 nationalities. Many of them come from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the developing world. Our network is based in the south (Qatar is in the Southern Hemisphere).

And the result, we would argue, is a far more international perspective. We have no home team. Our home team is not London or Washington or Atlanta. We are spread throughout the world, at four broadcast centers (Doha, Washington, London, Kuala Lumpur).

We offer something that is distinctly different from the BBC, and I think I'll let Americans decide which they want. I'm confident that once it's in front of them, many of them will choose Al-Jazeera English.

Aaron Barnhart: tvbarn.com

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