The Al Jazeera Network has announced a partnership with Sony Ericsson, where RSS feeds of its news content will be preinstalled on four models of its mobile devices in both the Middle East and North Africa.

The new initiative is part of the news organization’s development Labs in an effort to reach out to more readers through new media.

In addition to services like podcasts, a YouTube channel, Facebook account, an iPhone application and multiple Twitter news feeds, Al Jazeera recently launched a Twitter account and an interactive map of citizen-submitted reports to follow the developments in Gaza.

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I wish I could say that Twitter is providing useful, on-the-ground, independent reports of the Israeli military action in Gaza and the Hamas bombing of southern Israel. But all I have found there so far–in English, from individual tweeters (not news organizations, some of which are using Twitter in their Gaza coverage)–is heated rhetoric from non-Gazans and international observers. The Israeli side is more ideological than reportorial at this stage, as well.

Twitter searches for Gaza and #Gaza revealed a plethora of postings, but a dearth of newsy content.

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