NEW YORK – (July 30, 2013) – Al Jazeera America, the new American news channel that will launch on Aug. 20, today announced that Heidi Zhou-Castro, an award-winning journalist formerly at YNN in Austin, will join the new Dallas bureau as its first correspondent.
Al Jazeera America will be a news, lifestyle and investigative journalism channel that will offer its U.S. audience objective, fact-based and in-depth news focused on issues that are important to everyday Americans. The Dallas bureau is one of 12 that the news channel will open in cities across the country.
Marcy McGinnis, Al Jazeera America’s senior vice-president, newsgathering, said that having a Dallas bureau is critical for the channel. “We plan to cover the Southwest in significant ways that include business, economic, political and cultural perspectives.”
Zhou-Castro has reported in Texas since 2007 as an evening and weekend anchor for YNN in Austin. She also worked as a Spanish-language reporter in Galapagos, Ecuador.
Zhou-Castro received the 2010 Texas AP Broadcast Award for Best Investigative reporting and the 2008 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism.
“Heidi represents the type of highly talented, multi-faceted journalists we’re looking for in our reporters,” McGinnis said. “Her experience reporting in Texas, the greater Southwest region and in South America along with her commitment to investigative journalism will serve our viewers well.”
“I’m thrilled to be joining Al Jazeera America,” said Zhou-Castro. “The channel’s dedication to quality, objective journalism and finding the human side of every story is the way I want to report the news. I’m honored to have the opportunity to tell the real stories that affect Texans and viewers across the U.S.”
See more press releases from Al Jazeera America here.
