Control Room
Just finished watching it. Good documentary, very slippery topic: objectivity and impartiality in the news. The backgroud of the documentary was the war in Iraq (the last one) and how the news were provided.
Being a foreigner living in America, it was very entertaining yet frustrating to see the documentary. The people from Al-Jazeera were aware of the word objectivity and how that is only a mirage, a point of view, a side of the story; they are journalists after all. The American soldiers and officers at Centcom, on the other hand were not aware of that and just repeated over and over again the same set of messages, whenever the questions came. They are not journalists and their source is the government -not the street-, so their knowledge was very limited, having to balance it with slogans.
By living in America I know what everybody wants to ask: who's right? Certainly not George W. Bush when he said that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we all know that. But when it comes down to reporting and to this documentary in particular, I'll say that it shows both sides of the same coin. On one hand you have all the news channels in the US, with American journalists reporting on a war that their own country -and their fellow Americans from down the street- are fighting. How objective can they be? They are not even willing to show images of dead American soldiers, a rare case of self-censure; but happily showed dead soldiers from the other side. Normal I have to say, war in America is always "right", and dead doesn't fit into the equation.
Al-Jazeera on the other hand wanted to show not so much the progress of the American military (fishing in a bucket), but wanted to show what the cost of the war for the very same people that it's been "liberated" was. They showed how intelligent bombs that are said to be able to go into a smokestack went astray landing right in the living room of a regular house. They showed how airplanes and soldiers shooted to whatever was moving, scoring people that otherwise would have came back home with a grocery bag -and scored an Al-Jazeera journalist, what a coincidence. They showed what war is: dead, blood, tears, lies, destruction. The face of the war of "heroism" and happy-ending stories is well done in the American media; but how about the people that is on the other side of the bigger gun. How do they live? What do they think? Are they enjoying it?
So, who's right? Two sides of the same coin. American media watches the missiles being launch and the big explosions. Al-Jazeera goes there and checks out where those bombs have landed. Who's right? Who's more right?
A very slippery slope indeed.
Being a foreigner living in America, it was very entertaining yet frustrating to see the documentary. The people from Al-Jazeera were aware of the word objectivity and how that is only a mirage, a point of view, a side of the story; they are journalists after all. The American soldiers and officers at Centcom, on the other hand were not aware of that and just repeated over and over again the same set of messages, whenever the questions came. They are not journalists and their source is the government -not the street-, so their knowledge was very limited, having to balance it with slogans.
By living in America I know what everybody wants to ask: who's right? Certainly not George W. Bush when he said that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we all know that. But when it comes down to reporting and to this documentary in particular, I'll say that it shows both sides of the same coin. On one hand you have all the news channels in the US, with American journalists reporting on a war that their own country -and their fellow Americans from down the street- are fighting. How objective can they be? They are not even willing to show images of dead American soldiers, a rare case of self-censure; but happily showed dead soldiers from the other side. Normal I have to say, war in America is always "right", and dead doesn't fit into the equation.
Al-Jazeera on the other hand wanted to show not so much the progress of the American military (fishing in a bucket), but wanted to show what the cost of the war for the very same people that it's been "liberated" was. They showed how intelligent bombs that are said to be able to go into a smokestack went astray landing right in the living room of a regular house. They showed how airplanes and soldiers shooted to whatever was moving, scoring people that otherwise would have came back home with a grocery bag -and scored an Al-Jazeera journalist, what a coincidence. They showed what war is: dead, blood, tears, lies, destruction. The face of the war of "heroism" and happy-ending stories is well done in the American media; but how about the people that is on the other side of the bigger gun. How do they live? What do they think? Are they enjoying it?
So, who's right? Two sides of the same coin. American media watches the missiles being launch and the big explosions. Al-Jazeera goes there and checks out where those bombs have landed. Who's right? Who's more right?
A very slippery slope indeed.
Jean-Francois was drunk at 10:08 PM
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