The future of Al Jazeera

Increasingly, the network offers the best coverage of world events, in an age where formerly-dominant networks like CNN continue to offer us little of substance. Philip Seib considers its future:

Since the beginning of the Arab Spring, which the network is regularly credited (and criticized) for galvanizing, Al Jazeera played a vital role in spreading news about the uprisings throughout the region. Al Jazeera's critics -- and the network's dogged reporting ensures that it has plenty -- may argue that its coverage was sensationalistic, but the channel provided a much-desired flow of information that offset old-guard governments' efforts to suppress the news. It also helped lay the groundwork for the revelations by providing skeptical coverage of religious and other sensitive issues, such as women's rights, that traditional government-dominated media had long avoided.

I can recall Al Jazeera as the best source of coverage following the Japan earthquake and Fukushima disaster in March. A welcome voice of reason, it seems.