Ah, this thread is on the verge of so many interesting tangential topics but the one I'll address now is this interest in Al Jazeera America. Jon`C's thought provoking reply, errors excused, really deserves more attention. Al Jazeera, until recently, was owned by the government of Qatar. Qatar is a small, extremely oil-rich Middle Eastern country. Qatar is also quite friendly with the United States and hosts many United States military facilities. Al Jazeera, or more specifically the Al Jazeera Media Network, is now a "privately" owned multinational multimedia corporation based in Qatar. Those of my friends that find Al Jazeera so refreshing are as misguided as my friends that are so Islamophobically terrified of them. They're as corporate and government influenced as any of the other major news outlets.
I think people are hungry for the truth and sometimes mistake an alternate telling or perspective for the truth. No, sorry, if you really want the truth you are going to have to seek it out at discover it for yourself. You are not going to get it, or certainly not all of it, from virtually any of the state or corporate news sources.
"I would rather claim to be an uneducated man than be mal-educated and claim to be otherwise." - Wookie 03:16