NY Times Columnist thinks Al-Jazeera 'Balanced'

To this world Al Jazeera English offers a useful primer. The network can be tendentious — bin Laden’s face up there for several minutes — in stomach-turning ways. But, over all, its striving for balanced reporting from a distinct perspective seems genuine.

A year after its launch, it reaches 100 million households worldwide. Its focus is on “reporting from the political south to the political north,” as Nigel Parsons, its managing director, put it. The world it presents, more from the impact than the launch point of U.S. missiles, is one that must be understood.

Yet, the network has been sidelined in the United States. Representative Jim Moran, a Democrat from Virginia, told me: “There’s definitely an attitude here that these guys are the enemy. But in the Mideast, Asia and Europe they have a credibility the U.S. desperately needs.”

We know how Moran (D-VA) feels about the Jewish community and Israel. Moran places a great deal of responsibility for the Iraq War on the American Jewish leadership and influential individual Jews and has begun blaming the same group for war drums beating regarding Iran.

Moran has been criticized by his fellow Congressmen (both Republican and Democrats) and is considered somewhat of an embarrassment by his colleagues-which apparently does not prevent Coihen from relying upon his views to advance his cause - Free Al Jazeera!

Comparative courses in how Al Jazeera, CNN, the BBC and U.S. networks portray the Iraq war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be taught in all U.S. high schools and colleges. Al Jazeera English should be widely available.