- Kris Gruen, Director
WGDR/H began broadcasting the Al Jazeera English international news program in place of the ubiquitous BBC Wednesday, January 25. The 30 minute program airs weekdays 8am - 8:30am. The BBC will no longer be available at WGDR/H, although BBC fans can still hear the BBC on the Vermont Public Radio Network.
We have joined the short list of public radio stations (33) that currently air AJE in the US, and the even shorter list (6) of the college radio stations that do.
The King of Qatar may have an agenda with Al Jazeera, the independent, world news agency he funds: a free news agency that focuses on the promotion of Democracy in the face of long practiced Middle Eastern tyranny... And 60 minutes got one of AJE's popular talk show hosts to say it. A talk show host isn't a news reporter mind you, and their mission statement indicates nothing about a bias.
If you have a chance, watch this 13 minute story that ran on 60 Minutes on January 15th, it's pretty amazing.
If you're looking to vilify news outfits with evidence of agenda, it might be easy in AJE's case, because key associates admit to supporting the cause outlined above. If you're looking for positive change and hope for a brighter tomorrow, the story 60 minutes ran on Qatar and AJE is an amazing discovery.
While Al Jazeera has the majority of its funding coming from the King of Qatar, the king's mission is to sustain a world news agency that derives its information from diverse international sources, in order to report freely on all matters of local and world affairs, affecting common people. This effort sounds very much like the mission of WGDR/H's other popular independent, syndicated world news program, Democracy Now!: "Democracy Now!’s War and Peace Report provides our audience with access to people and perspectives rarely heard in the U.S.corporate-sponsored media, including independent and international journalists, ordinary people from around the world who are directly affected by U.S. foreign policy, grassroots leaders and peace activists, artists, academics and independent analysts..".
Qatar is feared and admired in the Mid-east because Al Jazeera is extremely effective in giving a voice to the people, and tells the truth about leaderships that practice oppression. Al Jazeera and the King of Qatar are being credited for the Arab Spring, and it's remarkable contagion.
Qatar's leadership is welcomed by almost every leadership in the world, even nations that are enemies of one another. When Syria began killing its own during the AS uprising recently, Qatar turned away from relations with them, called for partnership in intervention from democratic nations and took the strongest public stance in the world on violence as an inappropriate response to civil unrest.
When 60 Minutes asked the King "it seems like your foreign policy is to be friends with everybody?", the King replied "it's not a bad idea, is it?." Here's to taking imaginative and responsible action in the world!
More information at Al Jazeera English