> Another thing I don't understand: I don't understand how a network
> that reported that Jews were told beforehand not to go to work in the
> World Trade Center on Sept. 11 gets classified as a "serious news
> outlet." What, then, could possibly be an unserious news outlet?
Well, the New York Times - which I consider a serious news outlet (but hey, I'm a controversialist!) - once ran a multi-part "investigative" series purporting to prove the conspiracy theory that the guy who shot the Pope in 1981 was part of a KGB plot. The Times commissioned Claire Sterling, a discredited right-wing pamphleteer, to report the series. So there's a wide margin for error in what a serious news outlet can do.
As for Al-Jazeera, they didn't "report" that tale about the WTC attack - it was blurted out by the host of a Hardball-style shouting-head show, and he was reprimanded for it by the network's management.
Seth