Objectivity and Control Room
Laurel Gildersleeve
March 21, 2008
"Besides, the group of lenses which constitutes the
photographic eye substituted for the human eye is called
precisely, ´objective´".
Andre Bazin
"This word ´objectivity´ is a mirage."
Joanne Tucker, Manager, Al-Jazeera.net
Documentary films are scrutinized under ever changing and arguable parameters of an accepted documentary piece. The argument of the purely objective film is one that likely daunts any documentary production. In his book The Documentary Idea, author Jack Ellis attempts to define the principles in a catechism, contrasting the theories of the early filmmakers Flaherty and Grierson:
Q: What is documentary for?
A: To record actuality.
Q: Why would one want to do that?
A: To inform people about it.
Q: Inform to what ends?
A: Either to affect our understanding-to change, increase, reinforce it-which may (but is not necessarily designed to) lead to action, may make better persons of us, and which may in turn make the world a better place to live in (Flaherty); or to make better citizens of us and to move us to collective action in order to make a better society (Grierson). (Ellis, 7).
According to this idea, the purpose of documenting a subject on film is to forward an issue, to bring about an understanding or change. This in itself creates a goal to awaken a new awareness or change in the viewer´s opinion or attitude. This implies a need for manipulation to achieve the desired change. Once an image has been manipulated, is it objective? Can the viewer remain objective upon viewing it?
The question of completely unbiased filmmaking is a loaded one. Any film, fictional or non, is produced and shaped by human hands. By nature, we humans think critically, we have individual sets of ethics and opinions. In films exploring heavy controversial subjects, these opinions are likely reflected, consciously or not. In creating a documentary piece, whether it´s film, photography, or text, the producer is held to extreme standards of objectivity, it boasts a necessity of complete departure from opinions and ethics. However, due to the nature of humans, with our range of emotion, is this objectivity possible?
The film Control Room (2004), directed by Jehane Noujaim, an Egyptian American Harvard grad, provides a behind the scenes view of Al-Jazeera, the controversial Arab news station, during the first five weeks of the 2003 U.S. bombing campaign of Baghdad. The greater exploration of the film is the issue of objectivity in the context of journalism, specifically, wartime journalism.
Launched in 1996, Al-Jazeera was the first non-state funded, and thus non-national television station in the Arab world. This freed the station from many of the strict censorships imposed on the state funded stations. Stocked with former BBC Saudi correspondents, it strove to present honest, balanced programming. In a region of dictatorship and oppression, it was instantly controversial. It´s broadcast of dissenting views in the form of call-in or opinion pieces led to denouncement by many Arab Gulf states (Internet 3).
Al-Jazeera came under fire from The Bush Administration after showing footage of Osama Bin Laden and other Al Quaeda leaders following the September 11th attacks (Internet 3). Bush denounced the channel as the "Mouthpiece of Osama Bin Laden." Simultaneously, it was denounced in the Middle East for serving as a tool of American propaganda.
The main action of Control Room takes place in U.S. Military Central Command Head Quarters (Centcom). The complex, located 700 miles from Baghdad, houses the media offices for coverage of the war. The focal characters of the film are Sameer Khader, Senior Producer of Al-Jazeera, Hassan Ibrahim, Al-Jazeera journalist and former head of BBC Arab News Service, and Lt. Josh Rushing, Centcom Press Officer. Khader and Ibrahim are both passionate, principled, educated journalists. They strive for virtuosity in a straightforward portrayal of the events during the bombing campaign. They come under heavy attack from Allied Forces for showing footage of dead Iraqi civilians, women and children killed, and homes destroyed by U.S. bombs. When confronted with accusations of sensationalism, Khader replies flatly, "We have the pictures and we´re going to show them. Rumsfeld calls this incitement, I call it true journalism."
With the constant news chatter taking place in Centcom, the topic of unbiased war coverage is virtually unavoidable. By documenting the action within the media hub, Noujaim reveals what Khader calls the "Media show" that unfolds. What we see is definitely not objective war "documentation." Carrots are dangled in front of reporters by U.S. Press Officers. Sensationalism is played up (Jessica Lynch, the "Most Wanted" deck of cards), while significant information is dumbed down (Bombing plans). Following these infuriating dead-ends, the reporters of Centcom become incensed. CNN Correspondent Tom Miniter cynically points out the military´s effort to manage news in an unmanageable situation. At the same time, a British journalist argues that the war is just as much a media operation as it is a military operation.
The power of the media in wartime is illustrated tragically by events on April 8th, 2003. Over the course of the afternoon, U.S. missiles were launched against the offices of Al-Jazeera, Abu Dabi Television, and the Palestinian Hotel, housing 300 journalists. Al-Jazeera Journalist Tarik Ayoub was killed while broadcasting from the roof of the office building. The U.S. afterwards, in a press conference, Tarik´s wife tearfully appeals to all gathered reporters to investigate the missile attacks. She essentially voices the appeal of the film itself, "Please, tell the truth…only this once."
Prior to the bombings, Al-Jazeera was again under heavy criticism from Allied Forces after showing footage of American POWs captured by insurgents. Rumsfeld accused the network of violating the Geneva Convention by "Parading POWs" on television and the station is called upon by Allied Forces to stop showing footage of hostages, Ibrahim cites the same parading of Iraqi POWs by the U.S., "Now there´s a Geneva Convention?" He argues the importance of uncensored footage, "Let people understand that this is a war, people are dying. It´s not a clean war, it´s messy, it´ll get messier." Al-Jazeera.net Manager Joanne Tucker points to the hypocrisy of the outcry over the footage, "If there was true neutrality, there would be a welcoming of all images and information."
Some of the most honest and interesting musings on objectivity in reporting come from Press Officer Lt. Rushing. Rushing serves as a neutral force in the Film. Thrown into the middle of the media circus ring, he is forced to examine his own perception of the information war, as he is confronted daily by reporters from both sides. He meditates on the distortion in media information, while addressing his own biases, pre-conceptions, and unconscious tendency to "spin" information. He compares the coverage of Al-Jazeera to that of Fox News and corporate sponsored media, pointing to Nationalism on both sides. He becomes more and more attuned to the power of perception through media images throughout the course of the film. In the first scenes inside Centcom, he recounts an interview with an Al-Jazeera journalist, "I found their questions to be…combative." By the end of the film, he has come to recognize the many different perspectives involved in regards to the war. In one of the final scenes of the film, Rushing is engaging in a last interview with Ibrahim who virtually pleads with Rushing to find empathy with the Iraqi people. He talks of the power of images in wartime, since Vietnam, with television, the power of the image has transcended political language, changing the landscape of international war coverage, This is especially apparent in Arabic Nations where televised war coverage is brand new. Rushing sits back, his eyes popping open in understanding, "Oh, yeah, I guess I can see where they´d think we´re bad."
In choosing to focus on Rushing, Noujaim cites his unique position, "He had perhaps the most difficult job of all the press officers- he had to explain to the Arab Press what the U.S.´s position was in the face of constant confrontation with vastly different points of view. We knew he would be the center of constant conflict." (Internet 2).
Noujaim asserts her own neutrality in making the film. Despite being educated in the U.S. and working with an almost exclusively American editing team (one assistant editor was Brazilian) (Internet 2), as an Egyptian American she was questioned about her ability to remain objective. She claims that she had no political agenda going into the project and was only interested in finding out who was giving information to the world (Internet 2).
However, manipulation is present in Control Room. Footage of a bombing site in Baghdad, littered with dead bodies is quickly cut with footage of The Bush couple leisurely descending their airplane with their family dog. The voice of the film is given almost exclusively to the players of Al-Jazeera with peppered comments from American and other correspondents. With the exception of Miniter, the footage shown is not always favorable. Scenes of Al-Jazeera reporters soberly watching the looting of Baghdad is intercut with MSNBC correspondent David Schuster, watching the same footage while fixing his hair, laughing at the "hilarity" of Baghdad´s ensuing anarchy. The message of the film, that it would seem impossible for anyone with a conscious to be completely unbiased in a time of war, is mirrored in these editing choices.
If the goals of documentary film are to inform, to affect a change, to lead to collective action, Control Room is certainly a film that strives to fulfill these ends. A moving and multi-layered document of an extremely important moment in recent history, it examines the responsibility not only of those providing the world with information, but also the national leaders and citizens. Contrary to the atmosphere, it is not necessarily a political film. Although Noujaim subtly acknowledges her own political leanings against the war (internet 2), the film does not appeal to any political position, rather it is an appeal to diplomacy in journalism, media, and humanitarianism.
An important goal of documentary film not mentioned in Ellis´ definition is the goal of pure documentation. To remember such important moments in history are an imperative if, as he says, a better society is to arise. In a media war where information comes fast and hard, forgetting can be easy. After the fall of Saddam, Khader muses on what memories will remain, "History is written by the victors. All that´s left of this war is some scripts and history books. People like victory, not justification."
RESOURCES
Control Room. Noujaim, Jehane. 2004. DVD. Lion´s Gate Films. 2004.
Internet Resources:
1: www.joshrushing.com. Accessed 03/09/2007
2: www.noujaimfilms.com. Accessed 03/09/2007 and 03/12/2007
3: www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera. Accessed 03/09/2007 and 03/12/2007
Bazin, Andre. What is Cinema? V. I. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.
Ellis, Jack C. The Documentary Idea: A Critical History of English-Language Documentary Film and Video. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989.
photographic eye substituted for the human eye is called
precisely, ´objective´".
Andre Bazin
"This word ´objectivity´ is a mirage."
Joanne Tucker, Manager, Al-Jazeera.net
Documentary films are scrutinized under ever changing and arguable parameters of an accepted documentary piece. The argument of the purely objective film is one that likely daunts any documentary production. In his book The Documentary Idea, author Jack Ellis attempts to define the principles in a catechism, contrasting the theories of the early filmmakers Flaherty and Grierson:
Q: What is documentary for?
A: To record actuality.
Q: Why would one want to do that?
A: To inform people about it.
Q: Inform to what ends?
A: Either to affect our understanding-to change, increase, reinforce it-which may (but is not necessarily designed to) lead to action, may make better persons of us, and which may in turn make the world a better place to live in (Flaherty); or to make better citizens of us and to move us to collective action in order to make a better society (Grierson). (Ellis, 7).
According to this idea, the purpose of documenting a subject on film is to forward an issue, to bring about an understanding or change. This in itself creates a goal to awaken a new awareness or change in the viewer´s opinion or attitude. This implies a need for manipulation to achieve the desired change. Once an image has been manipulated, is it objective? Can the viewer remain objective upon viewing it?
The question of completely unbiased filmmaking is a loaded one. Any film, fictional or non, is produced and shaped by human hands. By nature, we humans think critically, we have individual sets of ethics and opinions. In films exploring heavy controversial subjects, these opinions are likely reflected, consciously or not. In creating a documentary piece, whether it´s film, photography, or text, the producer is held to extreme standards of objectivity, it boasts a necessity of complete departure from opinions and ethics. However, due to the nature of humans, with our range of emotion, is this objectivity possible?
The film Control Room (2004), directed by Jehane Noujaim, an Egyptian American Harvard grad, provides a behind the scenes view of Al-Jazeera, the controversial Arab news station, during the first five weeks of the 2003 U.S. bombing campaign of Baghdad. The greater exploration of the film is the issue of objectivity in the context of journalism, specifically, wartime journalism.
Launched in 1996, Al-Jazeera was the first non-state funded, and thus non-national television station in the Arab world. This freed the station from many of the strict censorships imposed on the state funded stations. Stocked with former BBC Saudi correspondents, it strove to present honest, balanced programming. In a region of dictatorship and oppression, it was instantly controversial. It´s broadcast of dissenting views in the form of call-in or opinion pieces led to denouncement by many Arab Gulf states (Internet 3).
Al-Jazeera came under fire from The Bush Administration after showing footage of Osama Bin Laden and other Al Quaeda leaders following the September 11th attacks (Internet 3). Bush denounced the channel as the "Mouthpiece of Osama Bin Laden." Simultaneously, it was denounced in the Middle East for serving as a tool of American propaganda.
The main action of Control Room takes place in U.S. Military Central Command Head Quarters (Centcom). The complex, located 700 miles from Baghdad, houses the media offices for coverage of the war. The focal characters of the film are Sameer Khader, Senior Producer of Al-Jazeera, Hassan Ibrahim, Al-Jazeera journalist and former head of BBC Arab News Service, and Lt. Josh Rushing, Centcom Press Officer. Khader and Ibrahim are both passionate, principled, educated journalists. They strive for virtuosity in a straightforward portrayal of the events during the bombing campaign. They come under heavy attack from Allied Forces for showing footage of dead Iraqi civilians, women and children killed, and homes destroyed by U.S. bombs. When confronted with accusations of sensationalism, Khader replies flatly, "We have the pictures and we´re going to show them. Rumsfeld calls this incitement, I call it true journalism."
With the constant news chatter taking place in Centcom, the topic of unbiased war coverage is virtually unavoidable. By documenting the action within the media hub, Noujaim reveals what Khader calls the "Media show" that unfolds. What we see is definitely not objective war "documentation." Carrots are dangled in front of reporters by U.S. Press Officers. Sensationalism is played up (Jessica Lynch, the "Most Wanted" deck of cards), while significant information is dumbed down (Bombing plans). Following these infuriating dead-ends, the reporters of Centcom become incensed. CNN Correspondent Tom Miniter cynically points out the military´s effort to manage news in an unmanageable situation. At the same time, a British journalist argues that the war is just as much a media operation as it is a military operation.
The power of the media in wartime is illustrated tragically by events on April 8th, 2003. Over the course of the afternoon, U.S. missiles were launched against the offices of Al-Jazeera, Abu Dabi Television, and the Palestinian Hotel, housing 300 journalists. Al-Jazeera Journalist Tarik Ayoub was killed while broadcasting from the roof of the office building. The U.S. afterwards, in a press conference, Tarik´s wife tearfully appeals to all gathered reporters to investigate the missile attacks. She essentially voices the appeal of the film itself, "Please, tell the truth…only this once."
Prior to the bombings, Al-Jazeera was again under heavy criticism from Allied Forces after showing footage of American POWs captured by insurgents. Rumsfeld accused the network of violating the Geneva Convention by "Parading POWs" on television and the station is called upon by Allied Forces to stop showing footage of hostages, Ibrahim cites the same parading of Iraqi POWs by the U.S., "Now there´s a Geneva Convention?" He argues the importance of uncensored footage, "Let people understand that this is a war, people are dying. It´s not a clean war, it´s messy, it´ll get messier." Al-Jazeera.net Manager Joanne Tucker points to the hypocrisy of the outcry over the footage, "If there was true neutrality, there would be a welcoming of all images and information."
Some of the most honest and interesting musings on objectivity in reporting come from Press Officer Lt. Rushing. Rushing serves as a neutral force in the Film. Thrown into the middle of the media circus ring, he is forced to examine his own perception of the information war, as he is confronted daily by reporters from both sides. He meditates on the distortion in media information, while addressing his own biases, pre-conceptions, and unconscious tendency to "spin" information. He compares the coverage of Al-Jazeera to that of Fox News and corporate sponsored media, pointing to Nationalism on both sides. He becomes more and more attuned to the power of perception through media images throughout the course of the film. In the first scenes inside Centcom, he recounts an interview with an Al-Jazeera journalist, "I found their questions to be…combative." By the end of the film, he has come to recognize the many different perspectives involved in regards to the war. In one of the final scenes of the film, Rushing is engaging in a last interview with Ibrahim who virtually pleads with Rushing to find empathy with the Iraqi people. He talks of the power of images in wartime, since Vietnam, with television, the power of the image has transcended political language, changing the landscape of international war coverage, This is especially apparent in Arabic Nations where televised war coverage is brand new. Rushing sits back, his eyes popping open in understanding, "Oh, yeah, I guess I can see where they´d think we´re bad."
In choosing to focus on Rushing, Noujaim cites his unique position, "He had perhaps the most difficult job of all the press officers- he had to explain to the Arab Press what the U.S.´s position was in the face of constant confrontation with vastly different points of view. We knew he would be the center of constant conflict." (Internet 2).
Noujaim asserts her own neutrality in making the film. Despite being educated in the U.S. and working with an almost exclusively American editing team (one assistant editor was Brazilian) (Internet 2), as an Egyptian American she was questioned about her ability to remain objective. She claims that she had no political agenda going into the project and was only interested in finding out who was giving information to the world (Internet 2).
However, manipulation is present in Control Room. Footage of a bombing site in Baghdad, littered with dead bodies is quickly cut with footage of The Bush couple leisurely descending their airplane with their family dog. The voice of the film is given almost exclusively to the players of Al-Jazeera with peppered comments from American and other correspondents. With the exception of Miniter, the footage shown is not always favorable. Scenes of Al-Jazeera reporters soberly watching the looting of Baghdad is intercut with MSNBC correspondent David Schuster, watching the same footage while fixing his hair, laughing at the "hilarity" of Baghdad´s ensuing anarchy. The message of the film, that it would seem impossible for anyone with a conscious to be completely unbiased in a time of war, is mirrored in these editing choices.
If the goals of documentary film are to inform, to affect a change, to lead to collective action, Control Room is certainly a film that strives to fulfill these ends. A moving and multi-layered document of an extremely important moment in recent history, it examines the responsibility not only of those providing the world with information, but also the national leaders and citizens. Contrary to the atmosphere, it is not necessarily a political film. Although Noujaim subtly acknowledges her own political leanings against the war (internet 2), the film does not appeal to any political position, rather it is an appeal to diplomacy in journalism, media, and humanitarianism.
An important goal of documentary film not mentioned in Ellis´ definition is the goal of pure documentation. To remember such important moments in history are an imperative if, as he says, a better society is to arise. In a media war where information comes fast and hard, forgetting can be easy. After the fall of Saddam, Khader muses on what memories will remain, "History is written by the victors. All that´s left of this war is some scripts and history books. People like victory, not justification."
RESOURCES
Control Room. Noujaim, Jehane. 2004. DVD. Lion´s Gate Films. 2004.
Internet Resources:
1: www.joshrushing.com. Accessed 03/09/2007
2: www.noujaimfilms.com. Accessed 03/09/2007 and 03/12/2007
3: www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera. Accessed 03/09/2007 and 03/12/2007
Bazin, Andre. What is Cinema? V. I. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.
Ellis, Jack C. The Documentary Idea: A Critical History of English-Language Documentary Film and Video. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989.