Movies - Control Room

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	Movies - Control Room

Control Room is a 2004 documentary film about Al Jazeera and its relations with the US Central Command, as well as the other news organizations that covered the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Made by Egyptian-American filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, the film was distributed by Magnolia Pictures (owned by 2929 Entertainment).

People featured in the film include Lieutenant Joshua Rushing, a press officer from US Central Command, David Shuster, an NBC correspondent, and Tom Mintier, a CNN correspondent. Al Jazeera was represented by Samir Khader, a senior producer, Hassan Ibrahim, a Sudanese journalist who attended American universities and headed the BBC Arab News Service before joining Al Jazeera, and Deema Khatib, a Syrian journalist and a producer at Al Jazeera. Samir Khader later became the editor of al-Jazeera .

Topics

Al Jazeera's role in Arab society

The film documents the spectrum of opinion that surrounds the Qatar television news network Al Jazeera. Throughout the film Donald Rumsfeld appears at press conferences, complaining about the propagandist nature of Al Jazeera. Paradoxically, a clip of Baghdad Bob shows him accusing the television organization of transmitting American propaganda. The contrasting views between the documentary’s central figures are not so clear cut. Early in the movie, press officer Lt. Rushing remarks that Al Jazeera bias leads it to focus exclusively on American tanks and Iraqi casualties, yet he later confides that agencies such as Fox News also appear to hand-pick their material, and he sees what both sides leave out. Samir Khader, a senior producer of Al Jazeera, claims the network's purpose is to shake up the rigid infrastructure of Arab society, which he believes has fallen behind culturally and technologically because of its social intolerance to other cultures and perspectives.

Objectivism vs. perspectivism

Several times, the Jazeera journalists and CENTCOM press officer Lt. Rushing collide in debate which often stems from the different ways these parties view the problem of war coverage. The journalists often display a perspectivist viewpoint, focusing on the perception of arguments from various audiences, while the press officer, being objectivist, focuses on facts which justify his viewpoint during this war. Rushing states, "I am not stepping down from my conviction," in defense of the U.S.'s liberating purpose in Iraq. However, when asked how this purpose might appear to the average Iraqi viewer, he softens: "I can see how it can be perceived as that." While his conviction may be well justified given many facts, Hassan Ibrahim, a Jazeera journalist, illustrates the counterpoint: regardless of the truth, George Bush's presentation — an ominous, 48-hour ultimatum — has managed to "galvanize the Iraqi people to Saddam," as were the Iraqi men shown in the beginning of the film in the coffeeshop.

At one point during the film, Rushing reflects on the transmission of images of American POWs and casualties by Al Jazeera, an act severely frowned upon and reprimanded by coalition forces and by western governments, as being in breach of the Geneva Convention. Rushing notes that though the images of his countrymen dead and wounded, being displayed on Arab television, filled him with dismay, the previous day had seen the transmission of dead and wounded Iraqis on western news networks, to which his reaction was comparatively slight. Such images, Rushing admits, would doubtless have had much the same distressing effect on Arabs as the images of dead and wounded Americans had on himself; he admits that he is upset that he himself did not feel as much when witnessing the images of dead and wounded Iraqis as when he saw images of similarly injured US troops.

It is cynically noted by Hassan Ibrahim that few remarks were made upon the applicability of the Geneva Convention in the case of transmitting images of Iraqi wounded. Upon witnessing the statement delivered by Donald Rumsfeld concerning the images of US dead and captives, he exclaims "Now there's a Geneva Convention?" Thus the film also focuses upon the limitations set upon objectivity by group affiliation, and also the related process by which apparently universally recognised laws might be viewed as being applicable only to those outside the bounds of that group.

Bias in the media

Rushing laments about Al Jazeera's bias, and speculates why Jazeera shows no photos of alleged Iraqi military atrocities, such as soldiers holding families hostage. Ahmahhed Schleifer, an American reporter, counters that no such pictures exist. He has no doubt these atrocities occur. However, he explains that hearsay filtering down through CentCom is not convincing to skeptical Arab viewers; "that's why pictures of these things are so vital."

Given the subject of this film, pictures are so important because they transcend language. Unless there is concern that they have been contrived, they give useful information to all perspectives. This is what a producer for Al Jazeera claims was the motivation for showing dead American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. As for objectivity, she discards it as “a mirage.” The film concludes that war is something that makes emotionless involvement impossible for any involved party.

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Movies - Control Room

Topics

Al Jazeera's role in Arab society

Objectivism vs. perspectivism

Bias in the media

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