This is an intelligent, well-produced look at the expanded role of independent news media in the Arab world. Parts of the report seem to retrace things we were hearing anew several years ago--the rise of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya in a region dominated by state-run media, and the familiar arguments about Al Jazeera's anti-Americanism and alleged bias in favor of Al Qaeda. But the piece updates the story in interesting ways. Al Jazeera now has sports and children's channels and a C-Span-like channel that covers live political events in the Middle East. (That's the one I'd like to see--with subtitles, please.) Many other media outlets are springing up to compete. And Al Jazeera appears to be moving toward Western standards of journalism as more of its staffers gain experience working for Western news organizations. I would have liked the piece to go much further inside these media organizations and to give us fewer talking heads characterizing them, but on the whole this is a worthwhile piece for a news magazine.