- Al-Jazeera host Avi Lewis
The English service of Al-Jazeera which bills itself as “the world’s first global English-language news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East” is now available to Bell satellite TV subscribers across Canada. A Bell spokesperson says its customers can sign up for an extra $3 per month. That may be good news for TV viewers who crave alternative points of view and more international coverage. Al-Jazeera English, which broadcasts from the tiny Arab country of Qatar, carries reports and documentaries from parts of the world rarely, if ever, seen on North American news channels. It is also much more critical of Israeli and US policies in the Middle East than its Canadian or American counterparts.
The CRTC approved Al-Jazeera English for distribution on Canadian cable and satellite services in November, but the channel didn’t become available in Canada until May 4. Aside from Bell’s satellite service, Al-Jazeera English is carried by Rogers cable which serves customers in Ontario and New Brunswick as well as Newfoundland and Labrador, and on Videotron cable in Quebec. Eastlink which holds a monopoly on cable service in HRM, does not carry Al-Jazeera English and three days of phoning and emailing produced no information on whether the company has any plans to provide it. Public relations spokesperson Jill Laing said she might be able to find out next week.
Among its offerings, Al-Jazeera English carries the news and current affairs program Fault Lines, hosted by Canadian journalist and documentary filmmaker, Avi Lewis. In recent episodes, Lewis interviewed Cornell West, the outspoken African-American scholar and civil rights activist and Arundhati Roy, the Indian novelist and political writer who called the American invasion of Afghanistan “an act of terror on the people of the world”.
According to published reports, Al-Jazeera English plans to open a Canadian bureau in Toronto. It already has news bureaus around the world and broadcasts from studios in Doha, Qatar; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; London in the UK and Washington, D.C.
This article appears in Jun 10-16, 2010.
Wow!
I’ve been watching it for nearly two years online for free and nearly a year on my iPhone and it just became available?
Oh finally!
Many people I’ve spoken to seem to be under the impression that it is largely Middle Eastern news coverage. Anything but. The documentaries and special reports are amazing, ranging from discrimination against Slovak-Hungarians to Greenland’s budding filmmakers to DJ schools in Brazil.
i.e. There is a world that exists outside of North America.
i.e. WOO!!
Hey Chas. the Grand: My piece says pretty clearly that Al-Jazeera English is now available on TV in Nova Scotia — right in the headline, in fact. And the body of the story carries several references to satellite and cable TV. If you want to watch on the tiny screen on your outrageously expensive mobile phone, that’s fine. Go right ahead. And if you wish to view AJE on a computer monitor that’s about a tenth the size of a flat screen TV, be my guest. As my post points out, until now, Al-Jazeera English has not been available to TV viewers in Canada. Now it is.
Not surprising that the Coast and Mr. Wark are doing cartwheels about the advent of Al-Jazzy and their terrorist TV service. And of course they feature Avi Lewis, who was too radical for even the CBC.
@ Wark
Did you ever thought you could hook up that computer to a flat TV and its streams a 24 hours live in HD for free? o
Just pointing it out so people don’t have to give more money to their TV providers to watch a Network that is free as the King of Qatar wants it to be( that’s the source of their funding) and why with the insults? I was only pointing something out
Bo Gus, have you ever even watched Al-Jazeera, per chance? On what basis would you consider it a “terrorist TV service”? You sound like a 12 year old trying to repeat what his right wing daddy may have joked about.
Al Jazeera, in my experience, provides something no other mainstream Western news service has sufficiently provided. That is, healthy, nutritious debate, and coverage of topics and voices usually ignored – in the end, expanding one’s mindset and exposure to the globalized world we live in. Why does the fact that you disagree with some of the voices they highlight qualify them as “terrorist”? You’re better off just listening to your own voice on loop.
Thank you ruffruff for pointing out how silly Bo Gus’s comment is about Al-Jazeera being a “terrorist TV service”.
How soon we forget.
In April 2008, the New York Times exposed a Pentagon propaganda campaign that used retired American military bigwigs to promote the illegal US invasion of Iraq and all that followed. It was published under the headline “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand,” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20gen…
The New York Times report shattered the credibility of western news networks which faithfully transmit US propaganda.
Bo Gus’s comment is still there, you Shonavabitch. Mind your language, sharmuta.
I guess the war on terror is going well. I still prefer HBO.
Hey, Bo, if you ever spend any serious time outside Canada and the US – pretty much almost *anywhere* outside Canada and the US – you’ll probably notice when watching local TV or reading local newspapers that the perspective ranges from somewhat different to way different than what we get here. In fact something like Al Jazeera English is sort of middle of the road as far as the other 95 percent of the world is concerned.
You’re very naive and trusting if you think that “our” media are invariably more correct.