Control Room
 

I was just out for a walk and strolled by our local indie filmhouse. They had a poster out front for this movie so I started looking it up and it seems interesting. It's about news outlets in Iraq and America and their very different reporting on the war. Has anyone heard about it?

www.controlroommovie.com

It's actually about Al Jazeera, the controversial (in the US, anyway) network that generally broadcasts the Bin Laden tapes and has shown some of the beheading pictures.

I may go see it if I have time.

I heard an interview with one of their "Journalists" (quotes used because their definition is a little different than ours) on NPR which was pretty interesting when they got into the different meanings of words between cultures.

One I remember is Martyr, which in their use is anyone who dies, basically -- as oppossed to our understanding. In other words, when they call a terrorist who has been killed a martyr, the aren't necessarily "honoring" her/him. It's a difference in the ethnic connotation.

Amazing. These guys really think we're that dumb?

I guess we produced Michael Moore. A note to terrorists: He does not represent us.

I read another interview yesterday from another Arab Language network executive. It was on a TV News BB I've received for many years.

It really isn't a matter of dumb. They have identified their audience. We're not it.

This persons argument is that they are simply doing the same thing for the Arab audience that FoxNews does for the Conservative element in this country -- except he thinks they do it better.

Not having seen his programming, I wouldn't comment. Just reporting on the interview.

Agree on the audience thing. However, for someone in the US to not be critical of these organizations because of their implicit and sometimes even explicit support for terrorists would be irresponsible.

I understand that they have selected their audience and are catering to it. You'd just hope that they'd be more responsible in choosing which messages to promote.

I've heard plenty of discussion about these guys -- even went to a talk given by MSNBC's Bob Arnot about these guys. One of his points was that they claim that they are essentially fair in their reporting if you take for granted that Israel has no right to exist (among other things).

I think we need to be critical of these guys because they advocate or give a platform for people to advocate violence against Americans, against the West, and against anyone that disagrees with their narrow view of the world. Honestly, I just don't think it's responsible journalism.

Again, not having seen their programming, I don't know whether they advocate violence or terror or not.

Otherwise, I certainly don't disagree with you in terms or criticism. The only point is that they program in a different context -- and they don't see themselves as being any more of an advocate for the Arab Speaking World than Fox is on the American Right.

This is one of those cultural things where folks from both sides could sit down and argue content decisions for weeks, never come to a consenses (sp?) and still each side would be "right" from their own historical and cultural context.

We just don't think the same way.

It's apparently out on video now. I thought that it was very good. One reality with news reporting is that it's easy to make claims about "no spin" but it's quite hard to be completely unbiased. For example, you often have to make decisions about what information is important, since your space is limited. I've seen numerous posts on GC related to the media's coverage of Greeks, where people believe that unflattering incidents get too much coverage and more positive things are glossed over. In this case, even if the media is trying to be fair, reporters and editors are making decisions about what's important enough to be printed/broadcast, and that ultimately affects the image of Greeks. It works the same way with other subjects. For example, the U.S. media gives lots of attention to Middle Eastern terrorists, and ignores more positive things. So we tend to equate Arabs with terrorism, even though only a small minority of Arabs actually advocate violence.

Do you have numbers or anything on these or are you also just guessing along? Perhaps you know what the positive things are and aren't sharing. Perhaps you speak for a "we" when you're really speaking for a "you".

-Rudey

Interesting documentary.... CBC showed it a number of times now...

I found the media relations officer from the Marines to be the most interesting person in the documentary; it was interesting to see how evolved his views were, and how eloquent he was in expressing his views...