Control Room is a remarkable documentary which examines the Arab news network al Jazeera and its depiction of the U.S. war with Iraq. It further illustrates the biases that permeate the media, which projects a skewed representation of the world to the public. Control Room is one of the first genuine attempts to show the Iraq War from an objective point of view. While U.S. media often justifies the presence of American troops in Iraq, glorifying U.S. soldiers as liberators, it becomes apparent that the Arabs perceive the United States as invaders. This film helps to shed some light on the blunders of the Bush Administration, exposing the truth about many aspects of this war that are continually filtered from American television.
The central focus of this film is to raise awareness of newscasters' blatant fabrication of information for the purpose of inducing specific reactions out of television viewers. This is well illustrated in a segment of the video where an al Jazeera employee describes how one British newscaster, in an attempt to glorify American war efforts, recorded a group of children who were chanting in Arabic about President Bush. Even though this reporter did not understand Arabic, he reported that the children were cheering for Bush, when in fact they were cursing at him. This example supports an argument made by David Perlmutter in his essay "Living Room Wars," where he analyzes the role that media plays regarding war coverage. In a portion of his essay entitled Realism, Perlmutter discusses the damaging effects of news videos. He says that the juxtaposition of images and captions often does not convey the whole truth yet, " .very few people challenge the notion that television can express falsehood" (541). The media's censorship blinds the public from the truth about the war. Most people don't think to contend the accuracy of the information that is presented to them and as a result, willingly absorb the media's propaganda.
One of the most eye-opening clips in this movie is a statement made by an Iraqi who said that American media is a leverage to induce fear in the American public. Fear is perpetuated by making Americans feel like they are under siege by the Iraq government. From an American standpoint, fear for the safety and well-being of the country justifies the Bush Administration's decision to declare war with Iraq. It is clear, however, that the vast majority of these fears are media induced and are therefore unwarranted. Several times throughout the video, Iraqis name the United States as the single greatest military threat in the world. Iraq, who admits military inferiority to the United States, has much more to fear from us than we have of them. By exposing the intent of U.S. media to instill fear into American citizens, it becomes apparent just how manipulative and hypocritical the Bush Administration truly is. There has been repeated criticism of al Jazeera for the uncensored footage of dead Iraqi civilians, stirring up anti-American sentiments and deliberately staging media to promote Arab nationalism. America accuses al Jazeera of being untruthful when U.S. media uses the exact same tactic of aiming negative sentiments at the Iraqi government to heroify the efforts of American military troops. The glorification of Americans is no new concept. James Loewen, author of "Handicapped by History" argues that the heroification of American icons, like U.S. soldiers and President Bush, stir positive sentiments in Americans and this in turn ensures a continual approval of the United States. It is distressing that we need media enhanced icons to increase our acceptance for our country. Control Room does a compelling job of illustrating the biases of war coverage. As Americans, we are sheltered from the perspectives of other countries. It is amazing how much information is butchered by the media. By the time we see the war coverage on television, it has been manipulated so much that the stories contain only a fraction of their original truthful information. By refraining from any verbal narration, the director and producer of this documentary has helped to preserve the neutrality of the film. It is interesting to see how this war is perceived on both ends of the spectrum instead of one biased account.
The central focus of this film is to raise awareness of newscasters' blatant fabrication of information for the purpose of inducing specific reactions out of television viewers. This is well illustrated in a segment of the video where an al Jazeera employee describes how one British newscaster, in an attempt to glorify American war efforts, recorded a group of children who were chanting in Arabic about President Bush. Even though this reporter did not understand Arabic, he reported that the children were cheering for Bush, when in fact they were cursing at him. This example supports an argument made by David Perlmutter in his essay "Living Room Wars," where he analyzes the role that media plays regarding war coverage. In a portion of his essay entitled Realism, Perlmutter discusses the damaging effects of news videos. He says that the juxtaposition of images and captions often does not convey the whole truth yet, " .very few people challenge the notion that television can express falsehood" (541). The media's censorship blinds the public from the truth about the war. Most people don't think to contend the accuracy of the information that is presented to them and as a result, willingly absorb the media's propaganda.
One of the most eye-opening clips in this movie is a statement made by an Iraqi who said that American media is a leverage to induce fear in the American public. Fear is perpetuated by making Americans feel like they are under siege by the Iraq government. From an American standpoint, fear for the safety and well-being of the country justifies the Bush Administration's decision to declare war with Iraq. It is clear, however, that the vast majority of these fears are media induced and are therefore unwarranted. Several times throughout the video, Iraqis name the United States as the single greatest military threat in the world. Iraq, who admits military inferiority to the United States, has much more to fear from us than we have of them. By exposing the intent of U.S. media to instill fear into American citizens, it becomes apparent just how manipulative and hypocritical the Bush Administration truly is. There has been repeated criticism of al Jazeera for the uncensored footage of dead Iraqi civilians, stirring up anti-American sentiments and deliberately staging media to promote Arab nationalism. America accuses al Jazeera of being untruthful when U.S. media uses the exact same tactic of aiming negative sentiments at the Iraqi government to heroify the efforts of American military troops. The glorification of Americans is no new concept. James Loewen, author of "Handicapped by History" argues that the heroification of American icons, like U.S. soldiers and President Bush, stir positive sentiments in Americans and this in turn ensures a continual approval of the United States. It is distressing that we need media enhanced icons to increase our acceptance for our country. Control Room does a compelling job of illustrating the biases of war coverage. As Americans, we are sheltered from the perspectives of other countries. It is amazing how much information is butchered by the media. By the time we see the war coverage on television, it has been manipulated so much that the stories contain only a fraction of their original truthful information. By refraining from any verbal narration, the director and producer of this documentary has helped to preserve the neutrality of the film. It is interesting to see how this war is perceived on both ends of the spectrum instead of one biased account.