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Control Room Documentary:
Behind the Cameras of Al Jazeera
New
Films/New Directors Festival:
Control
Room Film
Jehane
Noujaim
USA/Egypt,
2003, English, 83 m.
As
the United States charged towards a war with Iraq in 2003, a little-known Arab television station called Al Jazeera
unintentionally altered from a blip on the radar to a screaming siren. The
Western World came to perceive this unrestrained Arab CNN as an Iraqi-biased
news station that also served as Osama bin-Laden’s mouthpiece. But the truth
has many angles, as proved by Jehane Noujaim’s documentary Control Room,
which premiered in early April at the New Directors/New Films festival in
New York
.
Control
Room takes the viewer behind the cameras of Al Jazeera to see how it covers
the war and the flak that they take from the
US
military’s Central Command post in
Doha
,
Qatar
. This documentary shows how Al Jazeera bears the scrutiny of the West and the
US
military. Numerous well-juxtaposed interviews, as well as a focus on what Al
Jazeera endured in the war, raise questions on what objectivity really is and
how news organizations strive for this benchmark of journalism.
More
than anything, Control Room exposes
the myth of objectivity. The media is a curious animal obsessed with the
righteousness of objectivity but plagued by bias and spin. Impartiality in
covering a story is supposed to be the mainstay of good journalism—but as the
media struggles for the true story, lines are drawn and journalists often
unknowingly—and knowingly—take sides. Control Room exposes this
conundrum with wit and frankness by pitting the journalistic integrity of Al
Jazeera against the spin of Central Command, where news organizations lock horns
over war coverage. By exposing the games each side plays to tell the daily war
stories, the film debunks Western stereotypes about Al Jazeera and reveals the
tricks of fair journalism.
Control
Room is a textbook lesson on how
objectivity is interpreted by different news organizations and cultures. Whereas
Al Jazeera focuses on the human tragedies and suffering in
Iraq
, western media like CNN and NBC painstakingly show how the military is fighting
the war and the blessings it is bringing to the Iraqi population. In the middle
is Central Command, where the
US
military doles out key information in bits and pieces, trying to maintain a
positive front on the war for its citizens.
So,
who has the true story of what is really going on?—all, to some degree.
However, one thing is for certain, Both the
US
military and all news organizations need each other to cover (or spin) the war.
As the Al Jazeera Senior News Producer, Sameer Khader, says early in the film,
“You cannot wage a war without media, propaganda. Wake up! Wake Up! Wake Up!
There is a war around you, you are [Arabs] still sleeping. This is the message
of Al Jazeera.”
Such
interviews lay the groundwork for Al Jazeera’s mission to report the war as it
is affecting Iraqi citizens, which means a focus on human tragedies. This eats
at the mettle of Central Command press officers who feel that Al Jazeera
reporters come to briefings with hidden agendas. This is most apparent in the
frustrating banter between Al Jazeera reporter Hassan Ibrahim and Press Officer
Lt. Josh Rushing. Ibrahim repeatedly presses Rushing to state the real reason
why the
US
is in
Iraq
. Rushing offers the usual spiel about the evil dictatorship of Saddam Hussein
and the need to free the people of
Iraq
. Ibrahim points to the coverage by Al Jazeera of how Iraqis are suffering more
because of the war, so why should they appreciate what the
US
is doing?
“You
are the most powerful nation. You can crush everyone, I agree,” Ibrahim
candidly says to the camera about the
US
, “But don’t ask us to like it. You can’t have your cake and eat it
too.” Rushing has a different view: “[Al Jazeera] is biased towards
Saddam’s regime. Their questions are very combative.” Nevertheless, that is
the one thing most of the war correspondents agree on: news is reported by being
combative, inquisitive and relentless.
The
film also brings forth a key human weakness, preyed upon by the military in its
control of the news: that people soon forget and are soon distracted from the
dirty daily business of war. The day after Al Jazeera’s Baghdad headquarters
(along with those of Abu Dhabi television) are “accidentally” bombed by the
US (resulting in the death of an Al Jazeera journalist) the military “takes
the city” to the apparent joy of the Iraqis. It is obvious to all the
correspondents that the military’s take-over of
Baghdad
is too well planned: they enter the city and the world forgets the mistakes of
the previous day. This is how the game is played.
Truly,
what is objective is dictated by what your audience wants to know and what your
opposition wants to reveal. A few things become clear in the film: journalists
do have personal biases, all try hard to get the news out as objectively as they
see fit and in the face of a common enemy (i.e. a secretive
US
military wanting to present the best front to their citizens) journalistic
brethren stick together.
Control Room is
one of the most stimulating and fascinating media-inspired documentaries ever.
Just when you think you know how the media and the military operate in wartime,
deeper truths and riddles are revealed. Though Al Jazeera is the focus of this
film, really it is objectivity that is put through the wringer.
*
Dilshad
D. Ali's writing reaches
across the
United States
to address lifestyle topics pertinent for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Ali
has covered movie premieres, film festivals, art exhibits, concerts and numerous
other cultural stories, including 9/11’s affect on
New York
’s cultural landscape for Islam Online. Ali, a 1997 University of Maryland
journalism graduate, resides in
New York
with her husband and two children.
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