Control Room (2004)

11/26/06

Control Room is an award winning 2004 documentary covering Al-Jazeera's coverage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, via the networks team station at Coalition Centrial Command in Qatar. The two central characters in the film are perceptive Al-Jazeera reporter Samir Khader, and ernest army media relations officer Lt. Josh Rushing (who has since had a small role in what looks like a b-movie). The film stresses the difficultys of providing news within an Arab community with little history of a free press, and the Al-Jazeera network comes off quite positively. One should note that neither the American military or Saddams government were happy with Al-Jazeera's coverage of the war, which I take as an indication they were doing something right. Everytime Don Rumsfeld talked about the importance of telling the truth and liars getting caught, my thoughts were "comic genius".