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REVIEW: Control Room

Aug 2004, Vol. 149, No. 4
By John Mackinlay

Jehane Noujaim’s documentary film Control Room is ostensibly about the spin game played out during the 2003 invasion of Iraq between the front lines of the US media organization at CENTCOM and the alternative view of the war provided by Al Jazeeera. Noujaim, herself Arab-American, sets out to show that our perceptions of bias depend mainly on who we are, our culture and ethnicity. The media survive by feeding our preconceptions. In the UK, if the appetite on the street is for sex, nationalism and football, then it is supplied by our popular media. Noujaim’s point is that Al Jazeera caters for the Arab Street’s idiosyncratic appetites in the same way – why should it be any more objective than Fox TV or the Sun?