In Image Conscious: The fall of CNN, and what it means for the war, Reason web editor, Tim Cavanaugh, explains how Al Jazeera is providing better coverage of the war in Iraq than CNN:
I can’t think of a single instance over the past few days where the coverage from Jazeera’s people traveling with American forces was not more exciting and compelling than anything on CNN, the BBC or MSNBC (I have no access to Fox News in my current location, but given that network’s bloviation-rich, content-poor coverage of the war in Afghanistan, I’m not expecting great things). Yesterday morning, during the firefight in Umm Qasr, CNN broadcast a stationary camera shot of the long standoff, while pompous anchorman Aaron Brown warned viewers that they might accidentally see some unpleasantness?the unstructured environment of a live broadcast being presumably too dangerous for the network’s childlike viewers. Jazeera by comparison had a cameraman who was physically closer to the Marines on the front of the battle, and got closer footage of the operation. There have been similar performances in the fighting at Nasiriyah, and in showing the details of logistics for American forces in the field. Alone among the news networks, Jazeera gives you the impression there is a war going on, rather than a series of press conferences.
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In short, if you are not watching Al Jazeera (and if you have a satellite dish you’ve got no excuse), you are not getting anything close to full coverage of this war.