Former CBC news director Tony Burman has taken a job as news director at Al Jazeera. He’s joining fellow CBC allumnist Avi Lewis - their expert on the US:

Less than a year after leaving the CBC, former editor in chief Tony Burman is taking on a top post at news network Al-Jazeera English.

Wadah Khanfar, director general of the Al-Jazeera network, announced Burman’s appointment as managing editor on Wednesday.

Burman, who during his tenure as head of CBC News worked to integrate the broadcaster’s television, radio and online services, said that in his new post he will emphasize expanding “Al-Jazeera’s vast audience reach into important new areas of the world, most notably North America.”

He also said he would pursue “increased investment in investigative journalism, more provocative and insightful current affairs and expansion of the network’s large worldwide network of more than 60 news bureaus.” Burman succeeds Nigel Parsons, who was a key figure in launching Al-Jazeera English in November 2006 and was named the network’s new managing director of business acquisition and development.

What a good fit - he doesn’t even need to reign in his bias. For example …

Here he is explaining why the CBC didn’t show the Mohammed Cartoons:

At the CBC, we decided not to show the original cartoons in our extensive coverage of the controversy. We felt that we could easily describe the drawings in simple and clear English without actually showing them. This was intended, without embarrassment, as an act of respect not only for Islam but for all religions.

Why should we insult and upset an important part of our audience for absolutely no public value? We wouldn’t have done that if it involved overt examples of racism, or anti-Semitism or libel. Where do we draw the line?

Shouldn’t the media be part of the solution, not the problem?

Here is an excerpt from a report on Israel that ran during his watch over the CBC newsroom:

If Palestinians have committed terror, the Israelis have certainly committed war crimes. There is also the question of whether the Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, thousands of whom are well armed and overtly bellicose, constitute civilians or combatants.

and in another report

I think the principal reason (for the attack) is our policies on the Arab-Israeli issues. This is extremely important. We’re now regarded as being very much in the pockets of (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon. And the second reason, of course, is Iraq

here is Burman on the use of the word Terrorism:

‘Terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ are used in CBC news and programming to describe particular acts or people, including in Israel and the rest of the Middle East, but only when attributed,” he said. “In other words, if presidents, prime ministers, political leaders, police chiefs and the like, use them, they are freely included in our reporting …

Our preference is to describe the act or individual to refer to them as ‘gunman,’ ‘bomber,’ or ‘militant,’ for instance and let the viewer or listener make his own judgment,” Burman said. “I think we all understand the definition of the word, but in the Middle East particularly it has taken on political overtones. It is used so commonly in Israel that, for many, ‘terrorist’ has come to equal ‘Arab.’

Keep in mind, that’s what he did with a federal ombudsman - just wait and see what he’ll do with the gloves off.

Jonathan Kay has more on this

As does Ezra Levant

And the Halls of Macadamia blog

And SDA has more on Burman’s other biases