Al Jazeera English Named News Channel of the Year at RTS Awards
- Global news channel wins the prestigious award ahead of BBC News and Sky News only five years since its launch.
- Al Jazeera English’s ground-breaking social media programme, The Stream, also wins the Innovative News Award.
London, UK | 22 February, 2012 – Al Jazeera English was today named News Channel of the Year at this year’s Royal Television Society Awards, fending off competition from Sky News and BBC News.
The channel, which recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, received praise for its outstanding contribution to journalism, specifically its frontline coverage of landmark events including the Arab Awakening, the Tahrir Square protests and being the first on the scene to report the death of former Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi.
“This is excellent news – and a tribute to the outstanding work of our dedicated staff who have helped to make Al Jazeera English one of the world’s leading global news broadcasters ,” Managing Director of Al Jazeera English, Al Anstey, said.
“Al Jazeera English has had the most incredible year: a year where people took to the streets in protest, the economic crisis unfolded across Europe, and the world witnessed the devastating impact of the tsunami in Japan. Al Jazeera English was there to capture every moment, and it is a great privilege for our reporters and bureaus across the world to receive this award in recognition of our hard work. We look forward to continue providing in-depth, award-winning coverage as Al Jazeera English grows in reach and popularity across the world.”
Al Jazeera English’s social media programme, The Stream, also won the Innovative News Award for its in-depth analysis of the struggle between government loyalists and opposition supporters in Bahrain.
The programme, which relies heavily on social media platforms and Skype interviews for its content, brought the ongoing protests in Bahrain to the forefront and featured an intense Skype debate between Suhail Algosaibi, a government loyalist, and Zainab al-Khawajah, a Bahraini activist.
“Programmes like The Stream continue to raise the bar in news reporting,” Paul Eedle, Director of Programmes at Al Jazeera English, said. “The Stream allowed people to share their experiences and air their views in the midst of government crackdowns across the Middle East. The Stream was created for this very purpose, because we acknowledged the power of social media and citizen journalism and wanted to harness it. We share this award with everyone that has contributed to the show and its success.”
The prestigious RTS award follows a number of awards the channel received last year. Amongst these was the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for the documentary “Haiti: Six Months On” on Al Jazeera English’s flagship U.S. current affairs show Fault Lines. The channel also received the Columbia Journalism Award – the award given annually by Columbia University – in recognition of Al Jazeera English’s overall depth and quality of its coverage of the ongoing developments in the Middle East.
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About Al Jazeera English
Al Jazeera English is the first English language world news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East. Launched in November 2006, Al Jazeera English seeks to present every side and every angle to its stories and provide a voice to the voiceless. With over 70 bureaus across the world, Al Jazeera English provides independent and impartial news for a global audience – giving voice to different perspectives from under-reported regions around the world.
Al Jazeera English is available in more than 130 countries to more than 260 million households worldwide. The channel was awarded ‘Best 24 Hour News Programme’ at the Annual Monte Carlo Television Festival and has received awards various international organisations including: from Amnesty International, Huffington Post, Rory Peck, Foreign Press Association and YouTube. Al Jazeera English has for five years running been nominated as ‘News Channel of the Year’ at the Royal Television Society Awards and has retained the title of ‘News Channel of the Year’ for three successive years at the Freesat Awards.
The Al Jazeera English film “Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark” secured the 2011 Foreign Press Association Award for TV Feature/Documentary and the 2012 George Polk Award for Television Documentary. Al Jazeera English’s flagship U.S. current affairs show Fault Lines in 2011 won an Alfred I. DuPont award for the documentary “Haiti: Six Months On.” The same year, the channel also received the Columbia Journalism Award – the award given annually by Columbia University – in recognition of Al Jazeera English’s overall depth and quality of its coverage of the ongoing developments in the Middle East.
Al Jazeera English is part of the Al Jazeera Network, which now consists of the flagship Al Jazeera Arabic channel, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Documentary, Al Jazeera Sport, Al Jazeera.net (the English and Arabic web sites), the Al Jazeera Media Training and Development Center, the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, Al Jazeera Mubasher (Live), Al Jazeera Mobile and Al Jazeera Balkans.
Al Jazeera English broadcasts in the UK on Freeview channel 89, Sky channel 514 and Freesat channel 203.
Visit www.aljazeera.com for more details.
For further information contact:
Noman Tahir
+974 4489 2609
press.int@aljazeera.net