Starting Tuesday, KCSB 91.9 FM will begin twice-a-week airings — from 5:30 to 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays — of the Al Jazeera English news program.

Rapidly unfolding events in the Middle East during recent months compelled many U.S. media producers to rely on Al Jazeera English for comprehensive coverage of breaking news stories.

KCSB-FM, the listener-supported community radio station based at UCSB, will become the first radio station in the Tri-Counties to bring this unique source of information from around the globe to the Tri-Counties.

Al Jazeera English’s international reach and award-winning work complements KCSB’s mission to bring listeners material that is “stimulating, informative and generally unavailable from other local media.”

Al Jazeera English broadcasts from the four strategic locations of Doha, Qatar; Washington, D.C.; London, England; and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It has a staff of more than 1,000 from 50 countries, working out of 65 bureaus around the world. Its broadcasts reach more than 220 million households in more than 100 countries.

The half-hour news program will alternate in its KCSB time slot with the independently-produced Free Speech Radio News, which will now air on three nights of the week (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays).

— Theodore Coe is the development coordinator for KCSB 91.9 FM.