I've just spent the past two hours watching Al-Jazeera's new English-language satellite news service. Color me impressed! Production values are superb, technology state-of-the-art, and the English flawless, not least because they've managed to poach some of BBC's and ITV's better people.
Al-Jazeera in English
More after the jump.
Based in Doha, Qatar, the channel broadcasts from studios in London, Washington, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), as well as Doha. Among the telejournalists I've seen thus far have been David Chater, who did some of the best work to come out of Baghdad at the beginning of the war; Riz Khan, an Asian Brit, who was with CNN for a time after an earlier career at the BBC; Stephen Cole, another first-rate BBC man, who anchors for Al-Jazeera in London; and David Frost, who needs no introduction.
They already have some first-rate, in-depth programming scheduled: I watched Everywoman this evening, which covered the wife of the Al-Jazeera cameraman who was captured by our forces on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan and "rendered" to Gitmo, where he's been for the past five years. Another piece concerned the situation in Darfur with the first serious interviews with actual refugees I've seen anywhere.
During the regular news coverage, they had a reporter on the scene doing a live report from Gaza about the most recent Israeli rocket attacks including graphic, live pictures of the houses the IDF had just destroyed. And quite surprisingly, there was a live report from their correspondent in Sderot, Israel. I was amazed that they would have someone on the ground there.
As for how to receive it, according to the website, they are available in the States on Globecast, JumpTV, Fision, and VDC. They also have live, streaming video feeds, though they appear to be subscription only at a relatively modest $5.95 per month.