She has reported for Al-Jazeera English since its founding in 2006.
Kristen Saloomey
The acquisition of Current TV by Al-Jazeera on Thursday will not only expand the Pan-Arab news channel’s audience by 60 million viewers, but it will boost the visibility of Westfield native Kristen Saloomey.
Saloomey, 44, has reported for Al-Jazeera English since its founding in 2006. She was recently honored with the prestigious United Nations Foundation Silver Medal Prize for an investigative report on the cholera epidemic in Haiti.
A graduate of St. Mary High School in Westfield and Fordham and Columbia universities, Saloomey was a reporter for The Republican's predecessor, the Union-News, and Sunday Republican, and later WWLP-TV, Channel 22, in the 1990s. She worked briefly at CNN before joining Al-Jazeera.
“I had always been interested in international news and politics, but there were not a lot of opportunities until Al-Jazeera came along,” Saloomey told The Republican and MassLive.com in a telephone interview Thursday from New York City.
Al-Jazeera reports on international news events, which might not normally be covered, she said.
“We have a global perspective,” Saloomey said. “The standards at Al-Jazeera are high for telling a balanced story.”
Saloomey believes there are misconceptions in the United States about Al-Jazeera, which had been available to fewer than 5 million U.S. households. Time Warner Cable, the second biggest cable TV provider in the country, has indicated it will drop Current TV now that it has been acquired by Al-Jazeera.
“Being from the Arab world, there are suspicions as to your leanings and your agenda," she said. "The Al-Jazeera network perspective is more global – less of a Western view. We do ask questions about U.S. policy."
Saloomey finds that American television news coverage takes a “U.S.-centric view of world events," she said "because they are reporting for a U.S. audience.”
While 40 percent of Al-Jazeera English’s online traffic comes from the United States, the cable TV channel reaches 250 million households in 130 countries.
Al-Jazeera has news bureaus in Africa and South America, areas where U.S. news organizations have reduced resources because of financial constraints.
Recalling the network’s recent coverage of the Haitian cholera epidemic, which has been traced to a UN base in Haiti, Saloomey noted that American networks rushed to Haiti to cover the earthquake in 2010, but left soon after. Al-Jazeera has continued to report on the situation in one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.
“Al-Jazeera is all about being a voice for the voiceless,” Saloomey said.
The news channel is owned by the government of Qatar, much like the BBC, which is owned by the British government.
Al-Jazeera English has been headquartered in Washington, D.C., but with the $500 million acquisition of Current TV from Al Gore, Joel Hyatt and a group of investors, the new channel, Al-Jazeera America, will be based in New York. Its staff will double in size to 300.
The relocation will likely not impact Saloomey, who has covered the UN, Wall Street and other beats for Al-Jazeera. She makes her home in the Big Apple, along with her husband and two children.
However, the expanded audience will please her parents in Westfield, as well as many of her friends and relatives.
“My family will be so excited by this new deal – now they can see me,” she said with a laugh, adding, “It’s an exciting step up for us.”