Al Jazeera America announced last week that it has hired Soledad O’Brien as a special correspondent for “America Tonight,” the channel’s daily prime-time current affairs magazine program. It is O’Brien’s second major contract in less than a month.
Starfish Media Group, O’Brien’s production company, also will produce a series of hour-long documentary specials for the channel.
Ehab Al Shihabi, executive director for international operations for Al Jazeera America, announced in April that the channel would enter the U.S. broadcast market by late summer. Al Jazeera America has its headquarters in New York, and it will operate bureaus in Chicago, New Orleans and Detroit. The Al Jazeera Network is based in Doha, Qatar.
O’Brien also signed a deal, announced June 12, that she is joining HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.
O’Brien was the anchor for CNN’s morning news program “Starting Point,” which premiered on Jan. 2, 2012. She left a little over a year later to start the Starfish Media Group.
