Al-Jazeera

Check out The Angry Arab Guide to Middle East Media from The Angry Arab News Service, particularly the part addressing Middle Eastern perceptions of Al-Jazeera. According the the author (the Angry Arab),

“Al-Jazeera’s orientations are largely vague Arab nationalist, although people in the West would be surprised to learn that people in the Middle East are convinced that Al-Jazeera is run by the Mossad. People in the Middle East do not find Al-Jazeera to be "nationalist" enough. Furthermore, they do not like how Al-Jazeera features Israeli guests/propagandists. The news broadcasts are largely straightforward; the shouting and the anti-American sentiments are expressed on, or confined to, AlJazeera’s talk shows that are widely watched. But they always match the anti-American guest with a pro-American guest.”

and

“Al-Jazeera covers Bush and his administration very extensively, too extensively if you ask me. For the 11 hours of Bin Laden tapes that AlJazeera has aired since Sep. 11, it has aired more than 500 hours of Bush (or Bin Bush) tapes. They cover all his speeches live, and I have mocked Al-Jazeera (on AlJazeera) by saying that they cover the sneezes of US officials now.”

How closely do you suppose that hews to the opinions of Al-Jazeera held by the average American? Al-Jazeera has been widely portrayed by American media and the Bush Administration as an anti-American leftist pro-Islam mouthpiece (one of the great stories not covered by the mainstream and right leaning American media is the extent to which fundamentalist Christians have far more in common in their societal views with fundamentalist Moslems than more liberal thinking Christians and other westerners have with fundie Moslems). Once again, the perception depends on where you stand.