Al Jazeera English Live: Global News with an Arab Perspective
Al Jazeera English Live is a live feed of Al Jazeera's English channel.
Based in Doha, Qatar, the 24-hour TV news network gained global attention following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks when it broadcast video statements from Osama bin Laden.
As a result of this and other actions, Al Jazeera has been accused of pro-Arab, anti-Western and anti-Israeli biases. The network has acknowledged some errors in coverage but says it is committed to providing fair and balanced coverage of world events while maintaining its right to do so from an Arab perspective.
One story I saw while reviewing the app concerned Israel's 436-mile, 26-foot high "wall of seperation" it's constructing in the West Bank, it says, to protect itself from Palestinian incursions and attacks. The Al Jazeera story showed the plight of Palestinian farmers and others living in the shadow of the wall and discussed rulings passed by the United Nations and the International Court of Justice that the wall is illegal and should be removed. It was a perspective you might not see on Western TV but not one that I thought wasn't biased.
With Al Jazeera English Live you can judge for yourself.
Reception over Wi-Fi was crisp and clear but over 3G, while the audio was strong, the video quality was mixed.
Overall, the app is simplicity itself: it does one thing and it has a single button to control its operation. In a preferences area you can select your network connection and keep track of bandwith usage, if that's an issue for you (the app uses about 44MB of throughput an hour at Standard quality (3G) and about 135MB at High quality (Wi-Fi)).
A notice in the App Store says the app doesn't work on the 3GS but a fix is in the works and should be available "in the next couple of days." At the time of writing, that notice was about seven days old.
Al Jazeera English Live would be better if, like France 24, it offered sections beyond the live feed, such as business, sports and weather. But even as it is this app is well worth the $2.99 to gain a perspective on world events that no other news network is likely, or perhaps able, to provide. [PAB 9 Jul 09]
Al Jazeera English Live
Released: Jul 2, 2009
Version: 1.0
Price: $2.99
Seller: Livestation Limited
App Store Link
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