Al Jazeera Buys Current TV, Announces New U.S.-Based News Channel

Al Jazeera announced on Wednesday that it has acquired Al Gore’s Current TV network and will launch a U.S.-based news network headquartered in New York City this year. The network will have bureaus across the United States including in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago and is expected to hire about 300 journalists.

The news comes nearly two years after network executives met with Time Warner Cable and Comcast in an attempt to find a place in the American market.

On Twitter, many people like Late Show With David Letterman writer Justin Stangel joked about Current TV, a network with great potential that was, during its last days, perhaps best known for a messy breakup with mercurial TV personality Keith Olbermann.

Al-Jazeera buys Al Gore’s Current TV. This is shocking because no one has ever heard of Al Gore’s Current TV

— Justin Stangel (@Justin_Stangel) January 3, 2013

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter was among those who joked about Olbermann upon hearing the announcement.

Maybe Keith Olbermann can get on air again!Al Jazeera buys Current TV – lat.ms/TItQFT

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 3, 2013

Another conservative commentator, Glenn Beck, tweeted about his network’s attempt to buy Current TV, which was blocked because of conflicting ideologies.

Before Al-Jazeera bought Current TV, TheBlaze looked into buying it but we were rejected by progressive owners.glennbeck.com/2013/01/02/did… WG

— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) January 3, 2013

And many, like Time columnist Glenn Greenwald, quickly defended the network against the unavoidable bigotry that filled the Twittersphere following the announcement.

Of all the other reasons the Al Jazeera/Terrorists “jokes” are so stupid, it’s owned & controlled by one of the US’s closet ally regimes

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 3, 2013