RottenTomatoes.com
Log In | Register | What is RT?
Check out the new RT Community
  • Home
  • Movies
  • DVD
  • Celebrities
  • News
  • Critics
  • Trailers & Pictures
  • CommunityBeta
  • Features
  • | Columns
  • | Guides
RT Search Powered by Google
help icon Enhanced RT
searches on Google
Click here to turn on enhanced search results from RT on your Google searches.
 
News
Bush and Rumsfeld have called Al-Jazeera "the mouthpiece of Osama Bin-Laden." You might find truth to that statement next to Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
by Michael Drakulich | August 19, 2004
Discuss Article
Control Room

Three stars

A documentary written and directed by Jehane Noujaim. Released by Magnolia Pictures. Running time: 84 minutes. No MPAA rating.

by Michael Drakulich

In the months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and leading up to the United States’ war in Iraq, we heard quite a bit from the U.S. Defense Department about the Arab satellite television news network Al-Jazeera and how it was unabashedly pro-Saddam Hussein.

With Jehane Noujaim's documentary “Control Room,” we get a very different picture of Al-Jazeera in which their journalists follow much of the same principles as western journalists and display similar fallibility.

While it does not attempt to portray the news channel as a paragon of journalistic virtue, the film challenges American perceptions about it and raises pertinent questions about the United States’ involvement in Iraq and that country’s alleged ties to al-Qaida.

President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were perhaps the most outspoken critics of the television network, calling it the “mouthpiece of Osama Bin Laden.”

Perhaps there is a kernel of truth to that sentiment, but you might find it only when you find Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

The film did its best to establish the network’s independence from outside influence. To a large extent, it succeeded.

The network’s journalists didn’t spew terror-mongering, anti-American rhetoric in the name of Allah as some might expect.

If anything, they displayed more similarities to westerners than their own culture, from their style of reporting to the way they dressed.

With Arab fundamentalists known for being a punishingly harsh patriarchal society, there was no hint of it at the station. Women held high positions of management and everyone dressed in western business suits.

While the State Department has called the network just slightly left of fundamentalist, Al-Jazeera’s questions of the American government were logical and well thought. It’s the answers the American military provided that didn’t particularly stand up to scrutiny.

Yes, I understand that the military can and should only release measured amounts of information. But when it became clear the U.S. would not find weapons of mass destruction there, the reason for invad-ing changed. It suddenly became an opportunity borne of altruism to liberate a people from a brutal tyrant.

Or, as one Al-Jazeera reporter pointed out, it’s as if the American soldiers said to the Iraqi people, “Democratize or we’ll shoot.”

Some of Al-Jazeera’s responses to its American critics were particularly stinging.

When the State Department criticized the network for showing American POWs on film because it violated terms of the Geneva Convention, one reporter retorted that bombing another country without authorization from the United Nations Security Council was a violation as well.

If there is anything to be gleaned here it is that the channel and its journalists are more like the American media than we realize. They may not be as convenient a villain as some would want us to believe.

Samir Khader, a producer for the network, says the network’s objective is education and to show the human cost of the war.

“We care for them,” he says. “We are Arabs like them. We are Moslems like them.” It is a position the American media might very well take were a war fought on our soil.

Writer and director Jehane Noujaim doesn’t try to hide the network’s flaws either.

Janet Tucker, who manages the network’s web content, is asked by a western journalist if her station have remained impartial. She sidesteps the question with a question of her own, asking the presumed American journalist if his colleagues have done the same.

Nobody can really say how accurate coverage was, from either side. However, knowing that the U.S. military was practically the sole source of information for the American media, it is easy to question accuracy or the potential for spin.

This film may appear to be yet another ploy to ridicule President Bush’s foreign policy in an election year.

To write it off as simply that diminishes its accomplishment. Audiences should come away at least entertaining the possibilty that Al-Jazeera may be a more independent, credible news source rather than a Muslim fundamentalist propaganda machine.

Michael Drakulich is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association. He may be reached at
mdrakulich@starnewspapers.com
or (708) 802-8841.
Bookmark and Share
Comments Reply
Read More Comments
Post Your Comment
You must be registered to post comments. Login or Register.

Related Links

Control Room
  • Pictures
  • Posters
  • News
  • Forum

Most Discussed

  • Critics Choose Must-Sees and Worsts of 2009 (262)
  • RT Editors Choose Their Favorite Films of 2009! (144)
  • RT's Ten Most Popular Movies of 2009 (97)
  • Box Office Guru Wrapup: Avatar Continues Its Run In 2010 (82)
  • Total Recall: New Year's Eve Movies (44)
  • Weekly Ketchup: Annual Ketchup Edition (37)
  • Five Favorites of the Five Favorite Films of 2009 (32)
  • RT on DVD & Blu-Ray: 9 and Paranormal Activity (31)
  • Friday Harvest: Eclipse, Robin Hood, and more! (28)
  • Critics Consensus: The White Ribbon Is Certified Fresh (24)

Latest News

  • Box Office Guru Wrapup: Avatar Continues Its Run In 2010 (82)
  • Awards Tour: The Hurt Locker Wins Big At National Society of Film Critics Awards (18)
  • Weekly Ketchup: Annual Ketchup Edition (37)
  • Friday Harvest: Eclipse, Robin Hood, and more! (28)
  • Five Favorites of the Five Favorite Films of 2009 (32)
  • Critics Consensus: The White Ribbon Is Certified Fresh (24)
  • RT's 2010 Movie Preview -- Happy New Year! (0)
  • RT's Ten Most Popular Movies of 2009 (97)
  • Total Recall: New Year's Eve Movies (44)
  • Critics Choose Must-Sees and Worsts of 2009 (262)

Latest Interviews

  • Five Favorite Films With Peter Jackson (74)
  • Robert Downey Jr. talks Sherlock Holmes & Iron Man 2 - RT Interview (22)
  • Director Ruben Fleischer Talks Zombieland (2)
  • "I Don't Hate Women": Lars von Trier on Antichrist (17)
  • Eric Bana talks Love the Beast - RT Interview (12)
  • Fight Club Sound Designer Reflects on Film's 10th Anniversary (24)
  • James Schamus talks Taking Woodstock - RT Interview (8)
  • John Hurt Talks Harry Potter, Quentin Crisp and Alien - The RT Interview (16)
  • Terry Gilliam Talks Doctor Parnassus (24)
  • Wes Anderson Talks Fantastic Mr. Fox - RT Interview (9)

Latest Features

  • RT's Best of the Decade! (190)
  • Five Favorite Films With Peter Jackson (74)
  • The Effects of Where the Wild Things Are (37)
  • The Gimmicks That Changed Cinema: Part 2 (8)
  • The Gimmicks That Changed Cinema: Part 1 (37)
  • Five Favorite Films With Avatar's Sam Worthington (61)
  • Exclusive: The World of Where the Wild Things Are (10)
  • Sundance 2010: RT's 10 Most Anticipated Movies (45)
  • 10 Horrifically Profitable Films (48)
  • Ban Them All! 10 Infamously Controversial Movies (109)

Sponsored Links

 
 
About| Site Map| Help| RT To Go| Contact Us| Critics Submission| Linking to RT| Licensing| Movie List| Games| Celebs List| Newsletter
IGN Logo
About Us | Advertise | Contact Us | Press | Careers
IGN | GameSpy | Comrade | Arena | FilePlanet | Direct2Drive | GameSpy Technology
TeamXbox | Game Sites | VE3D | CheatsCodesGuides | GameStats | GamerMetrics
AskMen.com | Rotten Tomatoes | GIGA.DE | What They Play | Battlefield Heroes
By continuing past this page, and by your continued use of this site, you agree to be bound by and abide by the User Agreement.
Copyright 1998-2010, IGN Entertainment, Inc. | Support | Privacy Policy | User Agreement | Subscribe to RT's XML feed! RSS Feeds
IGN’s enterprise databases running Oracle, SQL and MySQL are professionally monitored and managed by Pythian Remote DBA.
Certain product data ©1995-present Muze, Inc. For personal use only. All rights reserved.