Last night Jose and I watched Control Room, a documentary on al-Jazeera (the Arab news network) made in 2004. The topic, of course, is how the war in Iraq was covered, with emphasis on the journalists stationed at U.S. Central Command outside Doha, Qatar.
Al-Jazeera was constantly criticized during the conflict by Bush, Rumsfeld and others (and continues to be criticized today) because 1) they were perceived to report with a pro-Iraqi bias, 2) they showed graphic images of civilian casualties, and 3) they showed footage of American POWs (you probably remember Rumsfeld complaining that this was a violation of the Geneva Convention). But this documentary shows a different side of the news network — it shows how they try to be objective, while recognizing that they are sympathetic to the Arab people. But how, they wonder, is that any different from outlets like Fox News being sympathetic to the American point of view?
There were two characters that were particularly interesting — and actually, I guess I shouldn’t call them characters, since they are real people — Hassan Ibrahim, an al-Jazeera journalist, and Lieutenant Josh Rushing, a U.S. military press officer. (Interestingly, Lt. Rushing resigned from the Marine Corps and has now joined Al-Jazeera International as a correspondant and military analyst.)
Journalist: “Who can defeat the Americans? They are so strong.”
Hassan Ibrahim: “The Americans will defeat the Americans. I have ultimate faith in the American Constitution.”
He didn’t meant that in a bad way — he didn’t meant that we’d be our own downfall. I believe he meant that he had ultimate faith that the American public would realize that bombing the crap out of Iraq was (and is) crazy.
Joshua Rushing: “The night they showed the American POWs and dead soldiers… it was powerful, because Americans won’t show those kinds of images. It made me sick to my stomach.”
[the previous night Al Jazeera had shown similar images of Arab casualties, “equally if not more horrifying”, but they hadn’t affected Rushing as much; now he compares his reaction to the two…]
Joshua Rushing: “I just saw people on the other side, and those people in the Al Jazeera offices must have felt the way I was feeling that night, and it upset me on a profound level that I wasn’t bothered as much the night before. It makes me hate war. It makes me hate war, but it doesn’t make me believe that we’re in a world that can live without war yet.”
That’s what made Rushing a great player in this documentary. He didn’t endlessly preach the military’s “party line.” He spoke more openly and honestly than I had expected from a miliary media liaison, and as a viewer, I felt like I was watching him ask the same questions of himself that many of us were asking here at home. Why were we bombing? Is it really “liberating” Iraq if we leave them with piles of rubble where their cities used to be?
Did you know that the U.S. bombed journalists? I don’t remember hearing much about that story in 2003. The official story is that we were fired upon, but regardless — we bombed journalists. Al-Jazeera has footage of an A-10 dropping bombs on them, and their correspondant was killed. We bombed the Palestine Hotel, where many members of the media were staying. The media let us know where they were; we knew they were there; we bombed them. It’s a scary thought to think that we might have done that because they weren’t sending the message we wanted to hear.
Anyway, I don’t really want to write a whole blog entry about my feelings on the war in Iraq and our continued presence there, mainly because it would take me a very long time to put my scattered thoughts into some kind of cohesive format. From the little I’ve written, I’m sure you can draw some conclusions about my personal views anyway. (Heck, you can probably figure that out from the fact that I watched the documentary in the first place.)
It was, however, a very interesting documentary that I’d recommend if you are interested in a different take on the media, especially the Arab media, and how they covered the war.
Actually up to now I kind of figured you for a right-leaning hawk. But had I decided to like you anyway. 🙂
Perhaps I’ll rent this. Thanks for the tip.
It is interesting that I believe many news agencies – CNN, NYTimes – completely incompentent and slanted when it comes to reporting on issues I know about and care about – feminist issues for example. Their use of statistics in almost *any* article is embarrassing. So, I don’t know why one would assume they’d do better with wars.
I think Fox and al Jazeera are probably both horribly slanted. I tend to think al Jazeera is worse because they are less examined. The question is where does one find more balanced news? Is there such a thing?
I find that the administrations criticize the media outlets when the media is not willing to carry the torch the administration gives them. The admins work hard on their spin and don’t want others attempting to do so. It is about control. My guess is that if the FOX channel decided to report on stem cell research and why it’s right, they would get hammered too just like the rest of them.
I don’t think that bombing journalists is a good thing for our military to do… however, from a military perspective you can see why they did it. In the age of t.v. and internet, the propoganda war is as important as the ground war in eventually winning. It was just “good” military strategy to eliminate all but US-run media outlets in Iraq to make sure ours was the only message getting across (the first buildings we took over in Iraq when we invided were the T.V. stations). In fact, though we prohibit using government sponsored propoganda on our own people (though I’m not sure what you call those anti-drug ads), we run “Air America” across the world which spews U.S. propaganda to oppressed nations.
Regarding the bombing of journalists, there were a few isolated occurrences in Iraq. Even with the US military knowing where the journalists’ hotel was doesn’t mean that they were safe from human error. They’re in a warzone and despite all best intentions it is not possible to guarantee their safety. This is one of the primary reasons that the DoD and media agreed to the concept of embedded journalists. It limits the access of the journalists, but it also has a much better guarantee of their safety. I regard the efforts of non-embedded journalists to be bold and daring, but by doing so over a long period of time inevitably they are going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think it is misrepresenting reality to imply or accuse that there was a conspiracy in the military to selectively target these journalists.
As another serious example of human error I point to the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Bosnia in the 1990s, which happened because the US were using old maps that didn’t identify the embassy there.
That all said, I’m interested in watching the documentary too.
Regarding Becca’s comment, it is true that controlling the information infrastructure is one of the important objectives of an invasion. But killing journalists just because they are journalists isn’t one. It’s a ethical and publicity nightmare, one the military would wisely try to avoid. Public perception was and still is an important factor during the American occupation of Iraq.
It’s not clear to me that we intentionally bombed them. I fully understand that it could have been a mistake. Yep, humans make mistakes.
It was just another interesting aspect of the documentary. And heck, even the documentary has a slant. It’s basically impossible for anyone to be unbiased these days.
It’s never been possible to be completely unbiased. One can always strive to be as unbiased as possible but I don’t there’s ever a point when unbiased is reached.