By Julie Asher
Hebah Abdalla, senior interview producer with Al Jazeera America, and Lisa Fletcher, host of the network’s “The Stream” program, talked about the launch of the cable news network and outlined its mission in a program Oct. 16 in the newsroom of Northwestern University’s Medill Washington graduate journalism program.
The event, a program of the D.C. SPJ chapter, was co-hosted by the Medill School of Journalism Washington program and Northwestern’s Medill National Security Journalism Initiative. Attendees included SPJ members and guests and Medill students and faculty.
At the start of the program, it was announced Abdalla and Fletcher’s comments to the crowd of about 40 would be off the record, despite the fact they’re journalists and they were speaking to fellow journalists. That decision led some to speculate privately the speakers might be concerned that some of what they had to say would be taken out of context. As it turned out, Abdalla and Fletcher really just covered the nuts-and-bolts of the network’s launch, its programming and its mission as a news organization.
Afterward, they stayed to chat with attendees and said they would be available for interviews. Efforts by Dateline to schedule an interview were unsuccessful.
During the program Fletcher said Al Jazeera’s overall approach is to provide an American audience with a different voice on the issues of the day -– in the U.S. and around the world — and offer a “robust” alternative to the “daily diet” the major TV networks serve up. Whatever broadcast network you watch, whether it is ABC, NBC or CBS, the news lineup is the same for all -– the anchors are different but the beginning, middle and end are almost identical, she argued.
Before Al Jazeera America launched last August, the network received hundreds of applications from broadcast journalists wanting to join the news team, according to Fletcher. A majority of resumes came people who had jobs but were looking to be part of a fresh approach to the news, she said.
Among those now on the air with Al Jazeera America are former NBC News anchor John Siegenthaler, who anchors its nightly news program, and former CNN anchors Joie Chen and Soledad O’Brien.
Al Jazeera America describes itself as “the new American news channel that reports unbiased, fact-based and in-depth journalism that gets you closer to the people at the heart of the news.” In one TV commercial, in a series of ads on cable promoting the network, a naturalist and a scientist give their opposite views on the climate change issue and the spot ends with a tagline that says Al Jazeera will “change the way you look at news.”
Its “vision is to provide fact-based, unbiased, in-depth journalism for U.S. audiences. It broadcasts local and domestic news in a global context, and global news in a local and domestic context,” says its website.
Al Jazeera America is owned by Al Jazeera Media Network, which is based in Qatar and receives major funding from the emir of Qatar. It is the former Current TV, purchased from that cable outlet’s founder, Al Gore, for a reported $500 million in January to gain U.S. distribution. The name “Al Jazeera” means “peninsula” in Arabic.
Its Washington bureau is one of 12 it has in major cities around the country. Al Jazeera’s headquarters are in New York City and it has a team of close to 800 journalists and staff.
Fletcher is an award-winning investigative reporter and news anchor. Her honors include the Peabody Award as well as Edward R. Murrow and Emmy awards. Her investigative work has been featured in magazines, newspapers and on PBS. Fletcher graduated from the University of Oregon.
Abdalla was a member of the team that helped launch Al Jazeera’s Washington bureau and helped start “The Stream.” She has worked in news production for CNN and as an assignment editor for its “World Report.” She also was an assignment editor at CBS affiliate WBNS-TV in Columbus, Ohio. She received a regional Emmy Award as an assignment producer and in 2011 was part of the team that won a Peabody Award for its coverage of the Arab Spring uprisings. She is a graduate of Ohio University and the Ohio State University and serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council at Ohio University’s Scripps School of Journalism.
According to a Nov. 17 New York Post story, Al Jazeera America’s average daily audience is 13,000. A spokesperson for the network told the paper: “We are making large investments in programming and marketing.
Currently, the network is carried by cable providers DirectTV, Comcast/XFINITY, DISH and Verizon FiOS. Time Warner recently announced it will begin carrying the network.
The evening ended with a raffle of six gift bags generously provided by Abdalla and Fletcher. Each had a pen, water bottle, Moleskine notebook, cellphone stand and tiny speakers for use with an iPod or similar device.