Who is tony burman

In , the Arabic channel had been granted a CRTC licence that was essentially useless, freighted with the onerous condition that its content be monitored continuously. This time would have to be different, and so on a cold Tuesday evening in February several hundred people turned out to see a panel discussion on the future of international news—the first of many appearances at which Burman would deliver his message.

Though there were other luminaries on the panel, which was moderated by Global national news anchor Kevin Newman, it was clearly Burman they had come to see.

Burman readily acknowledges, as we sit at the Four Seasons patio bar with the waters of the Persian Gulf lapping up beside us, that his stature in Canadian media is part of the reason he was tapped for the managing directorship at AJE. And obviously the Canadian system I know. When Burman left CBC , he initially planned to go small—to take on manageable creative projects as a consultant, which is what he initially did for AJE.

Pressed to take on an expanded version of his job at CBC , he was resistant. He would have to leave Toronto just as he was finally becoming reacquainted with his two adult children, and planning his marriage this past summer to Jane Ferguson, an Ontario Superior Court judge. AJE , unlike other international news agencies, had a permanent presence on both sides Jerusalem is its largest foreign bureau , which meant it was already on the ground when the war started.

Then it made the prescient, groundbreaking decision to give away its content to other networks for free, under the most lenient of Creative Commons licences. Its coverage of Gaza was nothing short of remarkable. While most American people are still denied the right to view Al Jazeera, many networks were forced to carry its reports and images simply because they were so insightful.

Gaza also proved, if needed, the objectivity and professionalism of Al Jazeera. Views of video reports on the English website—launched in , the same year it was hacked, in one of the largest-ever denial-of-service attacks, after posting photographs of dead US soldiers and Iraqi civilians—jumped percent, with 60 percent of those coming from the United States. Monthly visits to the site, meanwhile, rose to 22 million. The strategy worked.

Since then, attitudes in Washington have changed so dramatically that officials who used to regard being asked to appear on Al Jazeera English like an invitation to an al Qaeda training seminar are suddenly courting the network. This shift, combined with the fact that Western media have essentially abandoned foreign correspondence, leaves AJE well situated to assume the sort of dominance it has already achieved in other parts of the world.

And it may be—with a planned Canadian bureau and expanded coverage of the United States, including a new US-focused current affairs show hosted by Avi Lewis—that North Americans underserved even by domestic journalism will start looking to Qatar not only for news of the outside world, but to understand what is happening at home.

In the crowded hallway outside the Intercontinental Hotel conference room, a hundred or so journalists and media freedom types mill about, exchanging business cards and revelling in one of the last places on earth where they are free to smoke indoors.

Even the surprise appearance of Flemming Rose, the editor who published the controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, yields only mild indignation. An Anglo-American journalist in a natty suit, and a two-thumbed demon on his BlackBerry, Stroehlein churns out op-eds from his office in Brussels in an attempt to draw attention to forgotten wars.

He worries that the plummeting budgets for foreign coverage mean more and more conflicts will fall into that category. We as an organization take it very seriously. The longer viewers had been watching AJE , the study concluded, the less dogmatic was their thinking. That means foreign bureaus based in the countries they cover. It means long-term commitments to a region. The same potential exists when no one is there to bear witness at all—potential not only for mass violence but for corruption, nepotism, and an uninformed public incapable of holding anyone to account.

Which is why the current crisis in journalism is so dire, and why any and all efforts to reverse that trend should be welcomed, even if they come from the most hated name in news. January 1, February 21, August 28, June 10, June 21, March 27, Exclusive updates, a free tote, and more! Act Now. Support Us. Deborah Campbell. Ryan Carter. Join our community. Related Posts. Previous Article On the Plains of Abraham.

Next Article Peephole. Exclusive updates. If an attack happened, the biggest loser would be Israel. Incredibly, it would come when sanctions against Iran […].

No, definitely not. And to what end? Surely, the rich diversity of our own population is a reminder we need to tread carefully on potentially explosive issues. Having lived until recently in the Middle East where religion both dominates and […]. Get the latest from Open Canada straight to your inbox! Burman: Should U.