Tony Burman, the one-time head of CBC news, has been appointed managing director of Al Jazeera's English operations.
Burman, 59, takes over from Nigel Parsons, who has held the position since the network's launch two years ago. Parsons is now managing director of business acquisition and development.
“In the months ahead, I will ... put an emphasis on the expansion of Al Jazeera's vast audience reach into important new areas of the world, most notably North America,” Burman said in a news release.
He called Al Jazeera's newsrooms the most diverse in the world with a presence in more than 50 countries.
“I look forward to capitalizing on this strength through increased investment in investigative journalism, more provocative and insightful current affairs and expansion of the network's large worldwide network of more than 60 news bureaus.”
Here's the CBC.ca version.
Finally, here's the N-P's Jonathan Kay, who posted under the headline: Another CBC lefty takes the leap to al-Jazeera:
My dad had a great bumper sticker on his old car — I think he made it himself (he does that sort of thing) — that said "Who needs Al-Jazeera when we've got the CBC?" He was so proud of it that he once hauled CBC President Robert Rabinovitch out into the parking lot of their Montreal synagogue so Rabinovitch could look at it. (My mother thought this a tad rude on my dad's part. It was Rosh Hashannah, after all.)
I've met Burman only a few times, and it was usually on panels where the two of us were bickering about his network's political slant. He was also the guy who had the job of writing in to complain when the National Post opinion pages ran criticism of the CBC — this piece being a typical specimen of the genre. My impression was that he generally shared the anti-Israeli, anti-American slant of the journalists who worked under him, and it bugged him that anyone — especially the National Post — would dare hold the network to account.
No doubt, he'll fit right in well at al-Jazeera. My dad is going to have to print up a few more bumper stickers.
As an aside, in the 2004 film Control Room, al-Jazeera senior producer Samir Khader spoke openly of his admiration for Fox News, the fair-and-balanced, we-report-you-decide people.
I don't know if you can call the network left-wing so much as pro-Arab. While I don't speak Arabic, I've heard there is some disturbing ant-Semitic commentary on the Arabic channel from time to time.
Kay notes al-Jazeera also picked up Avi Lewis. Again, from what I understand, many of A-J's Arabic journos spent some time at the BBC.
Does that make A-J a lefty organization? Perhaps it does -- especially if you think of the National Post as representing the centre. :)