Should You Be Watching Al Jazeera?

Want to know what's going on in the world? The Atlantic's Robert D. Kaplan suggests you tune into Al Jazeera. The Arab television channel is "a visually stunning, deeply reported description of developments in dozens upon dozens of countries simultaneously," Kaplan writes. The network, according to Kaplan, eschews big-name bloviating and focuses on smart analysis from folks you may not have heard of. It is actually interested in news that may not concern the power players in Washington or London. But the channel is not perfect, Kaplan says. Al Jazeera's ability to cover news without the West's perspective doesn't mean it is free of a point of view: "Because its cause is that of the weak and the oppressed, it sees itself as always in the right, regardless of the complexity of the issues, and therein lies its power of oppression."