NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Al-Jazeera plans to open a news bureau in Nashville.The Tennessean reports (http://tnne.ws/18HPsHc) the news organization that bought Al Gore's Current TV for $500 million earlier this year has said it will begin broadcasting Al-Jazeera America sometime late this summer. The network plans news bureaus in 12 cities across the country.
Bob Wheelock, executive producer of Al-Jazeera English, confirmed Nashville as one of the bureau sites during an interview with WWJ-AM 950 in Detroit on Thursday.
He said the network wants to have bureaus in cities where other networks do not. Those cities include Detroit, New Orleans and Nashville.
Wheelock said the new channel will broadcast stories about Americans by Americans.
Vanderbilt religious studies lecturer Abdulkadir Gure said Nashville probably was chosen because it is geographically, politically and demographically central.