Poll: I love the new TV channels!

A few weeks ago, during the In Amenas hostages crisis, audiences of foreign TV channels witnessed something very rare. These channels showed images provided by an Algerian TV channel, Ennahar TV. The private Algerian TV was the only to provide images of the gas plant, the Algerian military forces, etc.

The foreign public may not realise it but this is quite new to us Algerians.
Two years ago, the Algerian government agreed to let Algerian private operators create their TV channels. And like with many topics, the minister’s statement hasn’t been followed by the legislation, and the few private TV channels we have still transmit from outside the country.

Links: Algerian Female Bloggers

I have shared in a previous post a list of the Algerian English blogs I knew. Today I am going to share links to another category, blogs owned by Algerian women. And as this category is bigger than the blogs written in English, I will only give links to the blogs I follow.

So here they are with no particular order.

Salima Ghezali is an Algerian journalist and you can read her editorials here. She doesn’t really have a blog but I am mentioning her because I consider her weekly audio editorials on Medi1 Radio as blog posts.

Ghania Mouffok is also

Links: Algerian Blogs In English

PoF already links to some Algerian blogs. Those among them which I added are there because I like them, without necessarily agreeing with them, and also because their scopes are related to our preferred topics. Another condition is that they must be relatively active.
In this post I am adding a list of the Algerian blogs in English which I have in my reader.

Ennahar TV

A new Algerian satellite TV channel has recently popped up on Nilesat. It is called Ennahar TV (like the newspaper it is affiliated to). It has become increasingly popular! I got curious so I went on youtube and searched for videos from Ennahar TV. It was like people say:

Algerian TV nostalgia

A selection of clips I found on youtube, of Algerian TV programmes since independence. It is by no means exhaustive. Enjoy!

News & Political Analysis Programmes

Sample news bulletins from Octobre 1962 - 70s : one thing that stuck me in these clips is that they are all in black and white! (Joke) No it was actually that all presenters are men who look pissed off by what they’re reading. The only thing that has changed nowadays is that now, we’ve discovered that this phenomenon is not only restricted to Algerian male news-readers. I hesitated to use the word ‘presenters’ here for obvious reasons. Also, note how the presenter keeps referring to political leaders as ‘el akh‘ (literally brother but, if we take the polico-economic context of the time the actual meaning might be closer to comrade).

[DZBlogDay] Agir pour l’Algérie

[I did not know about this, so I didn't prepare anything to post. I found out about it accidentally when I visited the blog of Chatnoir. I am going to cheat a little bit and set the publication date to the 14th of January. Yes, even cheating is permissible when it comes to acting for Algeria - which is the theme of this year's DZBlogDay.]

There are many ways an Algerian could decide to act for Algeria:

Poll: On new Algerian TV channels

Who still watches the Algerian television outside Ramadhan? Not many I am sure.

Depending on their supposed “ideology”, most Algerians do watch European French or Arab TV channels. So, if we consider news TV, the former would watch France24 and Euronews in French, and the latter would watch al Jazeera (not any more?), France24 or Euronews in Arabic (Algerians do not like al Arabiya, al Hurra, etc.). As to the generalist, movies and musical channels, you would have those watching French channels, and those watching their Arab competitors such as LBC, NBC, MBC, TBC, etc. (not sure all these channels do exist as I am not part of either groups). There is also another group which is probably a combination of the former ones and which watches some North-African channels, mainly Moroccan and Nesma TV.

The conclusion is nobody watches the Algerian channels, and they are so right about it. Forget the pre-90s period when everyone had to watch El yatima ENTV (I am a little nostalgic about this period which created a homogeneous Algerian mind with identical television souvenirs, but that’s another topic). Now we have Allah ibarek five state TV channels, but the quality has definitely degraded esp. if you compare with the late 80s and early 90s.

El Watan newspaper, how serious is it?

In yesterday’s edition of El Watan, you can read an article titled “the shocking words of Bouguerra Soltani on Facebook“. In this article, the journalist reports some sentences allegedly written by the president of the MSP on his alleged Facebook page. The sentences written almost two months ago (on January 10) raise a question about the Algerian people and whether it is possible to rely on them or not. The unwritten but obvious author’s answer is apparently NO. I’ll post below Al Watan’s article in French, and the original text in Arabic from Facebook.

El Watan is probably one of the most serious newspapers in Algeria. It’s one of the three  francophone newspapers which I read, the other two being Le Quotidien d’Oran and Liberte. But this newspaper has changed some 5 to 6 years ago and its editorial line became more… radical. Its opposition to the system became systemic and it lost sight of the objectivity that used to characterize it. I of course have no problem with this esp. that I know this newspaper has to compete with not only the state-owned newspapers but also the mediocre pro-system francophone and arabophone newspapers (L’expression, Echourouk, Ennahar, etc.)

The Algerian Pravda

I haven’t read any of the Algerian state-owned newspapers for many years so I thought, in these very special times, why not check what our dear El Moudjahid says on the recent events. And good news the good old newspaper didn’t disappoint me. I let you read this magnificent article. I liked it very much, especially the words in bold. Hope you’ll like it too.

Programme quinquennal 2010-2014 : 3 millions d’emplois 2 millions de logements !

Ferme volonté des pouvoirs publics de consacrer des ressources financières considérables pour créer des emplois en faveur des jeunes et octroyer à chaque citoyen un logement décent.

Links: DZ Blog Day on education

I discovered many Algerian blogs since I started with Patriots on Fire. I found out that many were related to IT and technology or to literature (people publishing their own poems, etc.); and that’s not what interests me most. I also found out that the Algerian bloggers were relatively young and were less acting as in one community (compared to the Moroccans for eg.) but I noticed some interaction between some individuals or small groups (there were even meetings organised in Algeria), and the Algerian digg-like (Bloginy) increased this interaction (and made me discover and keep up with more blogs).

The Algerian Blogosphere reached a new level after the good idea of one blogger, which had been adopted by many and supported by Bloginy, became a reality. This idea is for every participant to write the same day about the same topic. That way we’d have the same subject treated under different perspectives on the same day. This day is DZ Blog Day.