Al Jazeera

An interesting story from Al Jazeera reporter Gabriel Elizondo. Elizondo is crossing the U.S., collecting thoughts on people from all over on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. He had planned to stop at a high school football game in Texas, but ended up receiving an exceptionally cold welcome:

So I tried my best: “So, I guess Mrs Yauck told you who I am. I am a journalist crossing the country doing random stories about the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 and I was hoping to talk to some people here about it at the game, and get some opinions.”

He then said something I could not entirely make out, because his voice sort of quivered from a combination of being obviously furious and nervous at the same time.

But I am pretty sure he said:

“I think it was damn rotten what they did.”

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Al Jazeera English correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin, who was the face of that channel during the Egypt uprising, is joining NBC News as a foreign correspondent in September. Mohyeldin will be based in the Middle East for NBC, where he will contribute to all of the company’s platforms and networks.

Mohyeldin previously worked for Fox News and CNN in the Middle East, but started his career at NBC News in 2001 as a desk assistant.

“We’re excited to welcome Ayman back to the NBC News family as a foreign correspondent,” said NBC news president Steve Capus in a statement. “An extremely passionate and hard working journalist and producer, Ayman has a great deal of experience in various newsrooms covering major conflicts, and we think he will be an excellent addition to our team of correspondents.”

The move is a huge blow for AJE, which brought Mohyeldin stateside a few months back on a whirlwind press tour.

More information in the official announcement, after the jump.

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Maybe we can finally call this a “thing.” Back in March, we noted how an anchor for Libya’s state-run TV network delivered the news while brandishing an AK-47 and promising to defend Colonel Gadhaffi to the death.

Today, with Libyan rebels in Tripoli, Libyan TV anchors are once again brandishing firearms in an effort to “defend” the channels from attack.

Al Jazeera English caught the comments:

For Al Jazeera English, priority number one is still to grow its distribution in the U.S. But the challenges it is facing in that regard are not stopping the channel from pursuing a branding campaign to drive awareness. AJE recently launched a branding campaign in the U.K. (pictured right).

Advertising Age talks to network executives about their efforts to grow distribution and enhance its brand.

“They would marry up with the PR team we’ve got globally doing the job,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of really good pickup in the press in the United States. That definitely helps us in terms of the recognition,” Mr. Anstey said.

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Al Jazeera English and one of its biggest stars, Ayman Mohyeldin, get profiled in a wide-ranging GQ cover story this week.

Michael Paterniti trails Mohyeldin as he makes the media rounds in New York, and follows him as he returns to the Middle East:

Though Mohyeldin’s journalistic reputation continues to grow—born in Egypt, raised in Michigan, started as a gofer for NBC News, reared as a producer at CNN, first appeared on-camera for Al Jazeera in 2006—his is hardly a household name, not in America at least. And yet he’s the closest the network has to some rough approximation of an Anderson Cooper, good-looking, with a boyish air of derring-do.

Later, he visits AJE’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar, and explains the channel’s philosophy… and funding:

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The Columbia University School of Journalism is presenting its highest honor–the Columbia Journalism Award–to Al Jazeera English. AJE managing editor Al Anstey will accept the award at the 2011 commencement ceremony, where he will also address the graduating class.

The school’s faculty, which selects the awardees, voted for Al Jazeera English for the overall depth and quality of its peerless coverage of the ongoing protests in the Middle East. “Al Jazeera English has performed a great service in bringing the English-speaking world in-depth coverage of the turmoil in the Middle East.” said Dean Nicholas Lemann. “We salute its determination to get to the heart of a complicated story unfolding in countries where news has historically been difficult to cover.”

Usually the award is presented to an individual. This is only the second time that a show or organization has receieved the honor. In 1993 the award went to PBS’ “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.”

The announcement from Columbia, after the jump.

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One of the revelations from the Guantanamo Bay document dump yesterday was that an Al Jazeera cameraman, Sami al-Hajj, was held at the Navy prison in Cuba for six years, in large part because the U.S. wanted intelligence about his employer.

al-Hajj was eventually freed, and went back to work for Al Jazeera. Following the release of the documents yesterday, he appeared on the network to explain how he was captured, and what happened in captivity.

(h/t HuffPost)

Al Jazeera English is still struggling to gain distribution in the U.S., but that isn’t stopping the channel from experimenting with some new programming to try and become more relevant. The Huffington Post’s Michael Calderone attended the premiere party for AJE’s new program “The Stream,” which attempts to combine traditional TV and social media.

While AJE’s still pitching cable providers like Time Warner and Comcast, the network’s simultaneously ramping up its online and social media presence to help promote its international news brand to an audience of digital natives–some who may be too young to remember when Al Jazeera was the media bogeyman of the Bush years.

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“The proof is in the pudding,” he said, seated amid a roomful of partygoers drinking, mingling and grabbing Al Jazeera t-shirts and hats. “And when they see that it’s intelligent, it’s informed, it’s global, it’s connected, that starts to be exciting to people.”

Elsewhere, The Guardian reports that the BBC is considering retooling its U.K. cable news channel to save money:

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Al Jazeera English may still be struggling to gain wider distribution in the U.S., but it is still making headway in the “hearts and minds” front. As Politico reports, the Obama White House has taken a decidedly different approach to the Qatar-based cable news channel than the previous administration did:

“They are a really important media entity, and we have a really great relationship with them,” said Dana Shell Smith, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for international media engagement, who speaks Arabic and has frequently appeared on the channel. “This administration has empowered those of us who actually do the communicating to be in a close relationship with Al-Jazeera. They understand that the relationship can’t consist of complaining to each other about the differences we have.”

In the offhand comments President Obama made to donors last week that were caught by CBS Radio’s Mark Knoller, the President talked at some length about Al Jazeera, and Emir of Qatar, who essentially controls the channel:

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Former CNN anchor Tony Harris, who left CNN in December after more than six years at the cable channel, appears to have found a new gig.

Harris was anchoring on Al Jazeera English beginning at noon ET today.

“Good evening everyone, I am Tony Harris, it is 1600 GMT and this is Al Jazeera,” Harris said, before discussing the breaking news that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had been hospitalized.

While a source confirmed that Harris had joined Al Jazeera English, they did not know whether the role was a full-time one.

> Update: Harris has joined AJE full-time as a “presenter,” the channel confirms. Harris is based out of AJE’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar.

More information about the hire from AJE after the jump.

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