At a time when all manner of news — some of it propaganda, some of it fluff, and some of it genuinely world-changing reporting — is pouring forth from endless television broadcasts, news tickers, newspapers, and radios from every corner of the world, the question naturally arises: Is the notion of “objective” news reporting definitionally unsound? And what, in this era of “good” versus “evil,” do we make of Al Jazeera?

In its brief but engrossing 83 minutes, Control Room, Jehane Noujaim’s 2004 documentary, records Al Jazeera’s and other news organizations’ coverage of American invasion of Iraq in March of 2003.

Among its strengths is the ability of Control Room to convey that the notion of objectivity in news reporting is itself problematic; we have Al Jazeera and Fox and everything else in between, all of it purporting to be good, professional reporting. As portrayed in Control Room, Al Jazeera is clearly opposed to the American invasion of Iraq, and the audience gains a sense of the Arab solidarity that Al Jazeera both channels and panders to. The film, however, does not delve deeply into the political explanations of why the individuals who work at Al Jazeera are against the American invasion. Rather, it is from the personal, emotional, and visceral responses of the witty, charming, and acerbic individuals who work at Al Jazeera that the audience gets a sense of the Arab perspective, focused through the lens of Al Jazeera, on the American invasion of Iraq.  

Noujaim appropriately builds her documentary around two charismatic characters — Hassan Ibrahim, an Al Jazeera correspondent, and Samir Khader, a senior producer for Al Jazeera. In Control Room, we are not only shown a good amount of Al Jazeera footage and all of the scrambling that goes on behind the camera, but we are also treated to Ibrahim’s and Khader’s intelligent, caustic, and often sad banter. From the bemused chuckles and appreciative grunts that I heard around me at Film Forum, I wasn’t the only one charmed by Ibrahim’s and Khader’s humor and savoir-faire.

Noujaim isn’t so cheap as to rely on charismatic individuals to carry her film, and she tastefully but poignantly documents the coverage and spin around the death of an Al Jazeera reporter who was killed when American forces bombed the Al Jazeera building in Baghdad in 2003.

Noujaim does a responsible job of portraying the variety of news organizations that are reporting on the American invasion from the American government’s Central Command station, or Centcom, in Doha, Qatar. Not all of the journalists, however, are portrayed kindly; one journalist from MSNBC appears to be worryingly dumb and unconcerned with the reality that America is invading a country and beginning a war, and we are given a particularly choice scene in which an American anchorwoman comes across as particularly wooden, mechanistic, and a little freakish.

Control Room has elevated the debate of whether the concept of objectivity in news is now defintionally unsound, and it offers valuable insight into an Arab perspective on the beginning of the American war in Iraq. With Control Room, Noujaim has raised the stakes of the debate, and it is now our responsibility to continue that conversation.  

Mimi Hanaoka