Control Room
Director: Jehane Noujaim
Year Released: 2004
Rating: 3.0
Probing look behind the scenes of the infamous Al Jazeera network, which has been a major target by the American Government for perpetrating anti-American propaganda and showing graphic footage - this runs counter to the American news media, who show strongly pro-American propaganda. In other words: Kurosawa was right - there is no such thing as 'pure truth.' A better account of how the American media is influenced and controls the masses was shown in Achbar and Wintonick's wonderful Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky in the Media, but this is still good in its own right, and Noujaim does a fine job trying to get a variety of viewpoints (most of which conflict with each other). Hassan Ibrahim, among the most charismatic and insightful of the interviewees, is the kind of person I'd love to have coffee with and just talk politics - I hope CentCom man and good ol' boy Lt. Josh Rushing took him up on his lunch invite.
