![]() ![]() “I accept that on occasion inflammatory and offensive comments have been made. Most of the controversial comments, he says, have been aired on Al Jazeera Mubashir (Al Jazeera Direct), a C-SPAN-like channel that carries live broadcasts such as news conferences. And those allegations about anti-Semitic rhetoric? At a meeting of the Canadian Journalism Foundation on February 17 that’s filled with famous TV faces, the audience quizzes Burman about political interference from the Qatari government. No doubt he’s a reassuring figure for skeptics who see Al Jazeera as an alien news force. Every day at 1 pm, Burman sits down with the head of the TV channel that was the sworn enemy of the Bushies. One of his tasks over the nine months he’s had the gig has been to “rationalize” the Arabic and English channels he carried out a similar cost-saving job at the dual-language CBC. The old-school newshound commutes from Yonge and Summerhill to his apartment in Doha, overlooking the Persian Gulf with Iran on the other side. The polished programming ranges from Brit chat show host David Frost to field documentaries like Dining With Terrorists, exploring why people take up arms. What they’re seeing looks a lot like BBC, but with more brown and black faces. Many people access it free and full-screen through. Of the 22 million monthly hits AJE gets, more than half are from Canada and the U.S. Step one is enlisting the support of the thousands of North Americans who have already sampled the merchandise. But unlike last time, when the regulator, under pressure from mainstream Jewish groups, laid on licence conditions so severe that it was a foregone conclusion no carrier would add it, this time Al Jazeera English has a plan. Once again, Al Jazeera is approaching the CRTC for a spot on the TV dial. ![]() Riding the bounce, the station’s managing director, Tony Burman, former editor-in-chief of CBC News, was making the rounds last month in Toronto, talking up the Qatar-funded channel viewed in more than 100 countries – including Israel – but not in Canada or the U.S. From November to January, the Web audience for Al Jazeera English shot up 22 per cent, 600 per cent when it came to video reports. Though it’s somewhat less convenient than the TV remote, millions of North Americans took advantage of the online option. The only way you could have caught it was online, via Al Jazeera’s English or Arabic version. Of course, it’s understandable if you missed the compelling, on-the-ground coverage. Except maybe the news industry, particularly Al Jazeera, the only international news outfit with reporters inside the territory during the siege. It’s hard to find a winner in the Gaza war. ![]()
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