''America Tonight'' was Al Jazeera America's flagship news show between August 2013 and March 2016, airing at 9:30 p.m. EST. It was a showcase for thought-provoking and insightful in-depth reporting and programming with a focus on investigative reporting. Its mission is to tell urgent, important and underreported stories with the quality, depth and time they deserve. The newsmagazine program was hosted by former

CNN International Cable News Network International or CNN International (CNNi, simply branded on-air as CNN) is an international television channel and website, owned by CNN Worldwide. CNN International carries news-related programming worldwide; it cooperates ...

anchor and former CBS News correspondent Joie Chen, and was produced from Al Jazeera America's

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studio in Washington, D.C. It featured correspondents Adam May, Lori Jane Gliha, Sheila MacVicar, Christof Putzel, Michael Okwu, Sarah Hoye, and Lisa Fletcher.

History

Al Jazeera America hired Kim Bondy, a former executive producer with CNN to produce ''America Tonight'' from the ground up. The program presents in-depth segments each night on the economy, government, education, healthcare and the environment, and include breaking news stories. The program also features work by the Al Jazeera America investigative unit and covers stories in depth from across America, revealing new insights on the news of the day and breaking stories with its own original reporting. ''America Tonight'' also incorporates social media interaction on screen and off to reflect the views of its American audience. On July 1, 2013, longtime CNN anchor

Soledad O'Brien María de la Soledad Teresa O'Brien (born September 19, 1966) is an American broadcast journalist and executive producer. Since 2016, O'Brien has been the host for '' Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien,'' a nationally syndicated weekly talk sho ...

was hired to be a special correspondent for ''America Tonight'', as well as a deal with her production company Starfish Media Group to produce long-form documentaries for Al Jazeera America. The show, originally an hour long at 9pm eastern was shortened to 30 minutes and moved to 10 eastern on February, 2nd, 2015, it was then moved to 9:30pm on November, 2nd, 2015 timed with the HD launch of the channel on

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Focus

The show focus was on the average American person and their connection with a particular story. The show also showed investigative work as part of ''Al Jazeera Investigates''. When Al Jazeera America was formed out of the former

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what remained of Current's long time investigative program

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most notably Christof Putzel was integrated into the program and Al Jazeera's investigative team.

Awards

In 2014 Al Jazeera America and producer Reed Lindsay won a Gracie Award in the “Outstanding Hard News Feature” category from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation for the story “Fists of Fury,” which aired on America Tonight. The award was the first award ever for the channel. In 2015 Al Jazeera and producer Jihan Hafiz won a National Association Of Black Journalists Salute to Excellence award in the "Long Form Feature" category for the story "Fists Up Fight Back" about a group of young female black lives matter activists in Washington, D.C.

References

{{Al Jazeera America programming 2013 American television series debuts 2016 American television series endings 2010s American television news shows Al Jazeera America original programming