NEW YORK – (June 5, 2013) – Al Jazeera America has hired former NBC correspondent and Emmy® Award winner Michael Viqueira as its White House correspondent. Viqueira, who will be based out of Al Jazeera America’s Washington D.C. bureau, will cover White House daily press briefings, all presidential events and trips and other White House news and events.
“Michael Viqueira is a seasoned national correspondent with deep experience covering Washington politics,” said Ehab Al Shihabi, executive director of international operations for Al Jazeera and the senior executive in charge of developing Al Jazeera America. “Every political activity in the Capitol has an impact on the average American and his knowledge and extensive network of contacts will allow him to dig deeper to bring important news and information to light for the American public.”
Viqueira most recently reported from the White House for NBC’s “Today,” “Nightly News,” NBC Radio, MSNBC and MSNBC.com.
Viqueira joined NBC News in 1998 as a producer on Capital Hill and later became MSNBC’s chief congressional correspondent covering politics and legislation on Capitol Hill and occasionally contributing to general assignment stories. Prior to that, Viqueira was a news producer and on-air reporter in both English and Japanese for TV and radio in the Washington bureau of NHK, Japan’s largest broadcaster, where he was involved in research, news production and photojournalism.
Viqueira won two Emmy Awards for his coverage of the financial crisis and the 2008 elections and been awarded the Joan Barone Award for Excellence in Journalism. In 2005 he served as chairman of the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association.
“This is a great opportunity, both because of Al Jazeera America’s commitment to the kind of straight-forward, hard-nosed journalism that all good reporters value, and because it’s tremendously exciting to be building something that will fill today’s critical need for real, unfiltered and fact-based news,” Viqueira said.
See more press releases from Al Jazeera America here.
