To most inhabitants of the United States and much of the Western World, the words Al Jazeera immediately bring to mind thoughts of terrorism, anti-semitism, or propaganda.  The news network, now seen by more Arabs than any other network, was recently coined "the mouthpiece of Osama Bin Ladin" (the phrase came about when America cared about that guy) by the Bush Administration and lambasted for its unfair, unbalanced coverage of events in the Middle East.  Jehane Noujaim's new documentary, Control Room, gives an up-close look at Al Jazeera's coverage of the war in Iraq through the United States take over of Baghdad.  It focuses on the day to day activities of Hassan Ibrahim, a major Al Jazeera reporter who is against the war but sympathetic towards both sides, Samir Khadar, the network's producer, and United States Lieutenant Josh Rushing, who is the military press contact.  What Control Room succeeds most at is presenting multiple perspectives on the same events as well as proof that while Al Jazeera's coverage is slanted, it is no more biased than any of the American or British networks.  It shows the impossibility of truly objective war coverage and that even when reporters search for the truth, there are so many barriers that much of the information comes out slanted towards one side or the other.

The presentation of the material is a bit sloppy and could've used some more precise editing, but considering much of the footage shown was previously unavailable, it is an insightful document of the other side of the story.  In America, so much is made of the anti-American stance of many Arabs, but through Al Jazeera it becomes apparent that they have more than enough reasons to see our presence in their country as self-serving and unwarranted.  Most of what we learn in the film is actually common knowledge to people following the war through well-rounded means of communication (i.e., non-Fox News/CNN etc. buffs), but assuming a country's state of mind and seeing it up front are two completely different things.  It may sound like it, but Control Room is not a pro-Al Jazeera or anti-American film.  The focus on the fleeting nature of truth and the inability of people to search outside of their own pre-determined perspective not only leads us to the conclusion that similar attitudes will lead to biased coverage in the future and will facilitate more horrifying situations like the one in Iraq until our country's leaders can begin looking at things from a truly global perspective.

The Lieutenant's presence in the film is quite refreshing because it gives us the typical brainwashed military point of view, though he's also intelligent enough to try to help others see where he's coming from and to look at situations from many different angles.  He seems genuinely interested in why the Iraqi's react the way that they do and how they see certain events as they unfold.  Along with the other two men that are followed, the paradoxical nature of the media on a grand scale becomes frighteningly clear.  It in no way excuses one-sided news reporting (and it was nice to hear one representative of Al Jazeera freely admit their news was not objective and follow with the question "What network's new is objective?") and actually gives plenty of evidence to support claims that networks like Fox thrive on hypocrisy and doublespeak to capture their audience even when most reporters appear determined to report things as they happened.  By juxtaposing images of the war with Al Jazeera's and other network's coverage, we also see that what is reported isn't nearly as important as what isn't reported and that much of the bias is created in the decisions of what to cover rather than within the stories themselves.  The press, not war, is the necessary evil in Control Room and information is now more powerful than missiles.  In the 21st Century, the war is no longer won or lost on the battle field, but on our television screens.