blatant violation of NY Const. Art. 1, Sec 3 and advancing his religious preference over that of all others by closing Nassau OTB only on Roman Catholic Easter Sunday and Roman Catholic Palm Sunday in preference eg to Greek Orthodox Easter Sunday and Greek Orthodox Palm Sunday
Al Jazeera America Shifts Focus to U.S. News
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
The Al Jazeera America studio in Manhattan. The channel plans to have about 800 employees when it begins.
By BRIAN STELTER
Published: May 26, 2013
While it has a foreign name, the forthcoming Al Jazeera cable channel in the United States wants to be American through and through.
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Al Jazeera America employees at a meeting in the network’s Midtown Manhattan offices.
When Al Jazeera’s owners in Qatar
acquired Al Gore’s Current TV in January, they said that Current would
be replaced by Al Jazeera America, an international news channel with 60
percent new programming from the United States.
The remaining 40 percent, they said, would come from Al Jazeera English,
their existing English-language news channel in Doha, Qatar, that is
already available in much of the rest of the world.
That plan is no more. Now Al Jazeera America is aiming to have virtually
all of its programming originate from the United States, according to
staff members and others associated with the channel who were
interviewed in recent weeks.
It will look inward, covering domestic affairs more often than foreign
affairs. It will, in other words, operate much like CNN (though the
employees say they won’t be as sensational) and Fox News (though they
say they won’t be opinion-driven).
The programming strategy, more ambitious than previously understood, is
partly a bid to gain acceptance and give Americans a reason to tune in.
It may help explain why Al Jazeera America’s start date has been delayed
once already, to August from July, and why some employees predict it
will be delayed again.
Al Jazeera also has yet to hire a president or a slate of vice
presidents to run the channel on a day-to-day basis, which has spurred
uncomfortable questions about whether earlier controversies involving
the pan-Arab news giant are creating difficulties for the new channel.
The Arabic-language Al Jazeera was condemned by the American government a
decade ago for broadcasting videotapes from Osama bin Laden and other
materials deemed to be terrorist propaganda. Others have criticized the
Arabic and English channels for being a mouthpiece for Qatar, though the
channel’s representatives insist that is not the case. Other questions
about bias persist; as recently as last week, the Al Jazeera Web site
was accused of publishing an anti-Semitic article by a guest columnist.
But Al Jazeera America employees profess confidence that they will be
able to work free of interference. Some are already rehearsing with mock
newscasts. Others are fanning out to report news stories from parts of
the country rarely visited by camera crews. Still others are setting up
new studios in New York, where the channel will have a home inside the
New Yorker Hotel, and in Washington, where it will take over space
previously occupied by ABC at the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue.
New employees are being added to the rolls every weekday from places
like CNN, “Frontline” and Time magazine. “We expect to have
approximately 800 employees when we launch,” said Ehab Al Shihabi, the
Al Jazeera executive in charge of international operations, including
the American channel. He declined to comment on the delays, but said the
channel would start “later this summer.”
Since January, he and his colleagues’ overarching message to lawmakers,
mayors, cable operators, and potential viewers has been that Al Jazeera
is coming to America to supply old-fashioned, boots-on-the-ground news
coverage to a country that doesn’t have enough of it.
A series of announcements about new hires like Ed Pound, an experienced
investigative reporter, and new bureaus in cities like Detroit have
bolstered that message. Public relations and marketing firms retained by
Al Jazeera, like Qorvis Communications and Siegel & Gale, have
worked to limit opposition to the channel and increase support for its
arrival.
Al Jazeera representatives seem aware that they are confronting an
enormous marketing challenge. But they benefit from the public
perception that they have boundlessly deep pockets, thanks to the oil
and gas wealth of Qatar. Al Jazeera America has been portrayed by some
as a giant stimulus project for American journalism at a time when other
news organizations are suffering cutbacks. “This is the first big
journalism hiring binge that anyone’s been on for a long time,” said the
business reporter and anchor Ali Velshi when he left CNN in April for a
prime time spot on Al Jazeera America.
Roman Catholic Easter Sunday in preference to Greek Orthodox Easter
Sunday. Is it any wonder that NY is bankrupt and its OTBs going
bankrupt one after the other? See NY PML Sec 109 and NY Const. Art. 1,
Sec. 3 etc. You might think that one as yet unidicted NY official with
standing would avail themselves of a FREE formal or informal opinion
from NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
See below
See below
Letter: Why close racetrack on Palm Sunday?
Photo credit: AP | In this photo provided by New
York Racing Association, Stay Thirsty, left, with Ramon Dominguez
aboard, captures The G1 Cigar Mile horse race at Aqueduct in New York.
(Nov. 24, 2012)
To see what's wrong up in Albany, one only
needs to look at the fact that the Aqueduct Racetrack was closed on
Palm Sunday. On an average Sunday, The Big A has a total handle of
between $6 million and $7 million, of which New York
State takes a percentage.Racing also injects money into the industry, paying jockeys, trainers, grooms, etc. Hundreds of employees -- pari-mutuel clerks and racing officials -- help put on the show, which the state gets a piece of in income taxes.
All of this, worth thousands upon thousands of dollars, was lost because on an antiquated law. Not being allowed to race on Christmas or Easter is OK, but Palm Sunday? The New York Racing Authority races on Thanksgiving, and that's a holiday that the vast majority of us celebrate.
Changing this law would be a slam-dunk revenue creator.
Gerard Bringmann, Patchogue
Editor's note: The writer is both a racing fan and a practicing Catholic.
OPEN ON 1ST PALM SUNDAY, OTB RAKES IN $2M - NY Daily News
www.nydailynews.com/.../open-1st-palm-sunday-otb-rakes-2m-articl...
OPEN ON 1ST PALM SUNDAY, OTB RAKES
IN $2M. By Jerry Bossert / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS. Monday, April
14, 2003, 12:00 AM. Print · Print; Comment ...OTB FACES HAND SLAP OVER PALM - NY Daily News
www.nydailynews.com/.../otb-faces-hand-slap-palm-article-1.667233
Apr 16, 2003 – By Jerry Bossert
/ NEW YORK DAILY NEWS ... Aqueduct was also closed on Palm
Sunday, but OTB thrived on action from around the
country.
HI-
Thanks for the help. The item’s
below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing
address.
Claude
Solnik
(631)
913-4244
Long Island Business
News
2150
Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma,
NY 11779-7348
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LI Confidential
> Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
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