For Al Jazeera America online, no human tragedy could be reduced to a statistic or dismissed as the collateral damage of another’s self-defense or an inevitable consequence of geography, politics, class, race, sect or ethnicity. Poverty, violence and environmental degradation are not immutable forces of nature; they are the product of choices made by those in power. The media’s function in a democracy is to enable the public to make informed choices, which in turn requires laying bare the human consequences of policy decisions. That was a challenge we accepted with relish. Freed of commercial pressure to serve up clickbait, we could focus on stories that needed telling.
Resonating through our stories are the cadences of ordinary Americans engaged in an urgent national conversation. And, mindful of the idea that journalists write history’s first draft, we constantly reminded ourselves that America’s social progress is, first and foremost, a story of the courage and sacrifice of ordinary women and men willing to put their bodies on the line to face down injustice. From slave revolts to suffragettes, Selma to Stonewall, from the epic mining and railroad strikes of the late 19th century to the Delano farmworkers’ strike of the 1960s and more, it was the courage of ordinary Americans willing to defy injustice that earned us the rights and dignity we take for granted today.
While I don’t follow current-events (I didn’t know about 9/11 occurring until the next day when I went to school and half the kids weren’t in attendance), I do check Al Jazeera America twice a month to read some of what’s going on. I loved the way this group reported the news. I never visit any other American news site. BuzzFeed and Huffington Post are blocked on my home network for example.
I’m really going to miss this site as a news source and I honestly have no idea what I’ll replace it with. BBC America is a top choice but even they are taking on a SkyNews feel on political news.