Larry Pintak (full disclosure: he’s my boss) has written an article for Arab Media & Society tearing apart Al Jazeera English’s election coverage. A few choice excerpts:
There was something almost forlorn in U.S. election coverage on Al Jazeera English Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. It was a bit like watching a local college TV station attempt to compete with the big boys. No matter how hard they try, it’s just not the real thing….
Where CNN was – quite literally – beaming holographs of their correspondents onto a set worthy of the bridge on the Starship Enterprise, AJE anchors Ghida Fakhry and David Foster sat huddled in their coats on a rooftop overlooking the White House, looking like they wished someone would bring them a hot chocolate. …
At times, it all had the feel of a Jerry Lewis Telethon. The low point came when Foster urged viewers to email their friends in the U.S. to tell them to watch online. Memo to staff: Don’t beg.
People I’ve spoken to who are familiar with the inner workings of the station often say its a mess, and a lot of these problems have spilled out into the public in several articles over the past year. Based on my viewing I’d say the production values seem a bit low for the gobs of money being hurled at the station, but I’ll often tune in because they have much wider scope in their world coverage, especially people on the ground in places like Lebanon and Pakistan.
Wow. I didn’t watch the election coverage, but I did watch AJE’s campaign coverage and thought they did a decent job. I’m shocked they dropped the ball on election night. Something must have been going on behind the scenes.
no they didnt drop the ball that night , infact aljazeera english coverage was one of top 3 best news coverage that night .it was very good coverage and live interview from all over the world it was the best one inn the global prespective term .
Glad someone said it. AJE was pathetic and boring. BBC, incidentally, was not much better, but did have the advantage of truly surreal interviews with Gore Vidal and Ambassador John Bolton.
I guess the moral is: American networks for American news, Arab networks for Arab news
Lawrence Pintak is an American? Because his butt’s dying to see all news outfits to cover the US elections with that furious zeal. There are many other countries in the world than the US.