Disappointed (US press not exactly living up to traditions) is right to state that US press coverage of the war in Iraq could have been better. I do not claim that the 200-plus years of tradition in free press have always produced superb results.

The West is replete with tabloid journalism in addition to mainstream journalism; this is the price we pay for freedom. However, Disappointed wrongly implies that the war coverage was 100 percent one-sided and a metaphor for the dissolution of the American press into a vast propaganda machine. That is simply not true.

Al Jazeera, on the other hand, certainly does lean towards propaganda, and, indeed, to give an obvious example, a large focus group of Arab university students took the channel to task after the war for misleading them into believing the war was being won militarily by Saddam Hussein! In fact, all of Arabia was shocked and incredulous to see US troops enter Baghdad, thanks to Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya.

I stand by my suggestion to look through back issues of Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, the New Yorker magazine, Time and Newsweek and many others, for balanced coverage. As for the war and its aftermath, the New York Times, I believe, provides a balanced coverage from multiple perspectives, as in a example.