Release: Launch Date Announced

Al Jazeera English announces Launch Date

Doha, Tuesday 31st October 2006 – The Al Jazeera Network today announced that it will launch Al Jazeera English, the new English-language news and current affairs channel on Wednesday 15th November 2006, with the inaugural broadcast starting from its Doha headquarters at 12 GMT.
 
As the world’s first international English-language news and current affairs channel headquartered in the Middle East, Al Jazeera English is uniquely positioned to reverse the information flow from South to North and to provide a voice to under-reported regions around the world. With broadcast centres strategically placed in Doha, Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington DC, and supporting bureaux worldwide, Al Jazeera English is a new force in the global English-speaking media with the ability to seek out and cover different perspectives of news through on-the-ground reporting wherever news is made.

On 15th November Al Jazeera English will provide a fresh approach to news and current affairs to a worldwide audience with a combination of 12 hours of live news plus interview programmes and in-depth features and analysis from the world’s hot spots over a 24 hour day. Please click on the link below for a behind-the-scenes look at Al Jazeera English: http://www.beam.tv/beamreels/reel_player.php?jcgHfCnkhm

Wadah Khanfar, Director General of the Al Jazeera Network said: “We are extremely proud of what Al Jazeera has achieved over the past ten years. Al Jazeera today is an international media organisation. Al Jazeera English will build on the pioneering spirit of Al Jazeera and will carry our media model, based in the South, to the entire world. The launching of the English Channel offers the chance to reach out to a new audience that is used to hearing the name of “Al Jazeera” without being able to watch it or to understand its language. The new channel will provide the same ground-breaking news and impartial and balanced journalism to the English speaking world.”

-ENDS-


NOTES TO EDITORS
About Al Jazeera English

Al Jazeera English is the world’s first English language news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East.
Broadcasting from within the Middle East, looking outwards, Al Jazeera English will set the news agenda and act as a bridge between cultures.
With unique access as the channel of reference for Middle East events, and broadcast centres strategically placed around the world in Doha, Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington DC, Al Jazeera English will balance the information flow from South to North, providing accurate, impartial and objective news for a global audience from a grass roots level, giving voice to different perspectives from under-reported regions around the world.
Al Jazeera English is building on the ground-breaking heritage of its sister Arab-language channel – Al Jazeera, which was responsible for changing the face of news within the Middle East, now extending that fresh perspective from regional to global. 

GET MORE FROM THE AL JAZEERA PRESS OFFICE

Al Jazeera’s Press Office is open for enquiries from members of the press and media. Journalists can contact us at the following address:

The Press Office, Al Jazeera, PO Box 23127, Doha, Qatar
e-mail: press.int@aljazeera.net – Tel: +974 489 2320/1, +44 207 201 2819 or +1 212 486 7070

The Al Jazeera Press Office Inbox is regularly checked during office hours and inquiries will be answered as quickly as possible.