Sample Al Jazeera's English news

It's easy to forget that Al Jazeera -- a favorite whipping-boy for all manner of American jingoists and neo-imperialists -- was once the great hope of many neocons. Here was a Western-style news organization that was independent of (and didn't hesitate to criticize) Middle Eastern governments, and that was supposed to be a harbinger of a new day of Arab pluralism and all that.

As far as I can tell -- and I'm basing this on reading the English-Language website regularly, not watching the broadcasts in their original Arabic -- the station's coverage hasn't changed a lick since then. The charges that Al Jazeera has an "anti-American bias" -- not to mention the U.S. bombings of Al Jazeera stations and the detentions and killings of the network's reporters -- are purely the result of the fact that America launched an objectively illegal war since then, and they … you know, covered it as such.

Anyway, al Jazeera's English broadcasts are as "radical" and "anti-American" as your typical fair on BBC, as this ten-minute news brief from last evening illustrates pretty clearly.