Velshi: Going to Al Jazeera was a risk worth taking

Business journalist Ali Velshi writes on LinkedIn about leaving CNN in 2013 for Al Jazeera America, which announced earlier this week that it was shutting its operations.

Velshi writes, “In fact, on April 3, 2013, the day I resigned from CNN, but before I was able to say where I was going, I told the media: ‘I’ve got a great opportunity to stretch some new muscles and grow something, and it appeals to my entrepreneurial side.’

“I’d spent years covering business and entrepreneurs, but my work at CNN involved little risk. I craved the input that being the first on-air person hired by Al Jazeera America would give me. The chance to help make some decisions that might influence the outcome. Though in a near-constant state of flux, the DNA at CNN was baked in. Al Jazeera America was to be some hybrid of the great in-depth reporting of Al Jazeera English with the dynamism of American cable TV. I could be part of a great experiment in the evolution of American journalism.

“Knowing what I know now — about the management struggles that would ensue, about the layoffs, about languishing in relative ratings obscurity, about facing challenges from critics who judged our book by its cover — I’d make exactly the same decision.”

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