The View From Here

ON THE ONE HAND: Samir Khader underlines the inherent contradictions of Al-Jazeera's existence.

Control Room's Samir Khader on how Al-Jazeera sees the news.

by Sam Adams

In a white dress shirt and safari vest, chain-smoking and drinking Coke, Samir Khader looks like central casting's idea of a journalist. But chances are central casting wouldn't send down a senior producer from Al-Jazeera, whose purported anti-American bias has been the subject of many a White House press conference and newspaper editorial. Claiming 40 million viewers in the Arab world, it makes sense that Al-Jazeera would be the preferred outlet for anyone hoping to reach the largest possible number of Arab viewers, but the network's decision to broadcast several video communiques from Osama bin Laden led to oft-repeated charges of complicity: a Google search on "bin Laden," "Al-Jazeera" and "mouthpiece" returns over 2,000 hits. To many Western commentators, what Khader and his co-workers produce is the very opposite of objective journalism.

As Al-Jazeera's top-rated talk show, The Opinion and the Other Opinion, points out, there are two sides to every story. Until now, Americans who don't speak Arabic have had little chance to evaluate the administration's claims, and no way to conceive of Al-Jazeera as anything other than a faceless mass. Giving institutions a face is what documentaries do best, and Control Room is a sterling example. Jehane Noujaim (Startup.com) spent six weeks in Doha, Qatar, during the most recent Iraq war, dissecting the way not just Al-Jazeera but American networks covered the U.S. assault. The results could hardly fail to open a few eyes. True, criticism of U.S. policy does fly inside Al-Jazeera's walls, from the well-reasoned rhetoric of correspondent Hassan Ibrahim, who sums up the country's attitude as "democratize or I'll shoot you," to the unnamed translator who mimes disgust at the screen after translating an American soldier's remarks. But the film is full of moments that complicate easy stereotypes: Though he criticizes America's government, Khader expresses great admiration for the country's ideals, saying that he'd gladly send his children to school in the U.S. and "trade the Arab nightmare for the American dream." (He also says he'd take a job at Fox News if offered, though he now says he feels the comment was taken out of context.) If Al-Jazeera's decision to broadcast images of both Iraqi and American corpses didn't square with the administration's plan to present the war as a bloodless "cakewalk," their power is asserted by none other than Lt. Josh Rushing, the U.S. press officer stationed at Central Command in Doha. Though he dutifully toes the party line as to the war's righteousness, Rushing's response to the Al-Jazeera footage is disarmingly straightforward: "It makes me hate war."

Perhaps the key moment in Control Room is when a spokeswoman for Al-Jazeera's Web site responds to a reporter's question about the network's bias: "This word, objectivity, is almost a mirage."

Khader, perched on a chair in a New York hotel room, sees objectivity as not illusory, but certainly in flux. "Objectivity is something that is judged by your audience. In my opinion, there are many facets to this objectivity. It all depends on your perspective. People tend to confuse that by asserting that their perspective is the objective way, where the other perspective is not objective. I see them as complementary."

The notion of complementary objectivities is, of course, oxymoronic, but it points toward the inherent contradiction of Al-Jazeera's existence: providing objective (and yes, "Western-style") journalism to an audience that has almost no experience of it. Until Al-Jazeera's founding in 1996, the only journalism from within the Arab world was state-run; Arabs who wanted the "real facts" turned to the BBC or Radio Monte Carlo. Despite seed money from the emir of Qatar, the network freely criticizes Arab governments, which got it banned from several countries. With some pride, Khader points out that American journalists were allowed to follow U.S. troops into Kuwait, while Al-Jazeera's were not.

"From its inception," Khader says, "Al-Jazeera was labeled as the enemy — not by the West, but by Arab governments. Why? Al-Jazeera wanted to lay the foundation for something new. We wanted always to cross red lines. We wanted to break taboos. We wanted to uncover corruption. We wanted to present more than one opinion. And also to be open to the Arabs."

It is, Khader admits, "not easy to be balanced when your audience is — sometimes, not always — radicalized. You try your best to be balanced, but you cannot deny that sometimes you have, not to take positions, because if you take a position you are no longer objective, but at least to present more of a given point of view than the other." If Khader's ability to simultaneously defend Al-Jazeera's objectivity and justify its disproportionate coverage is something of a mind-bender, it's partly because, despite the fact that many of Al-Jazeera's journalists come from jobs in Western media, they're less fluent in the language of hypocrisy. Surely only the callowest of Fox News viewers believes the network's claim to be "fair and balanced," but imagine if they dropped the slogan. Control Room defuses claims of Al-Jazeera's unilateral bias, mostly notably with a scene where Khader reams out a subordinate for booking an American talk-show guest who blithely asserts that the sole motivation for the war is for the U.S. to get control of Iraq's oil. (New Yorker critic Anthony Lane surmised that the scene might have been played up for the camera, but Khader says he wasn't even aware he was being filmed.) But it also points out, as if people needed reminding, that the Western press is hardly objective: You can't watch reporters go from clamoring for pictures of U.S. troops entering Baghdad to scurrying after the fictitious Jessica Lynch story and not think the press corps got played. If the movie doesn't wholly vindicate Al-Jazeera, it certainly undermines the idea that the English-language media have a lock on truth. As for which society is freer: Consider that Khader was flown to New York to discuss the film, while Rushing, whose job consists of addressing the media, was muzzled by his Marine Corps superiors — who initially denied they'd done any such thing — after he'd already checked into the hotel. (Rushing's wife told Salon.com that he is considering leaving the military as a result.)

Khader has harsh words for U.S. policy, and quickly becomes angry when discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But he is unwavering in his admiration for American ideals, and his wish that Arab nations would democratize along similar lines. Surprisingly, the Iraq-born Khader shows more disappointment than outrage over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prisoners. "The Americans didn't do something we are not used to," he says. "The thing that was sad is that this case was the result of soldiers representing a country which came to the region to restore freedom and human rights. But look what happened after! When the congressional hearings started, that was amazing. If these things happen, we should at least give credit to the Americans that they have a democratic system, and people and government officials are accountable."

From a skeptical point of view, Al-Jazeera's decision to broadcast the hearings live, in their entirety, might serve as the ultimate gotcha: Americans admitting their mistakes on worldwide television. But for Khader, it was a message to the Arab public. "Yes, we condemn what happened. Yes, what the Americans did was bad. But look how they react! Do you imagine an Arab minister of defense being grilled by the Parliament of his country? At least if you don't like the Americans, look — they have something you don't have. Is this anti-American?"

At first Khader, a skilled rhetorician, declines to speculate what changes he would make if he controlled Al-Jazeera. "If I were the only one at Al-Jazeera, the first thing I would do is I would leave Al-Jazeera," he says. "I like democracy." But after a moment he relents. "I would rather focus more on social issues. We tend to talk much about politics." It's clear that, for him, the future welfare of the Arab world comes first, and the U.S. is of interest insofar as it affects, or might help shape, that future. As he says in Control Room, "Something is happening around you — wake up! This is the message of Al-Jazeera."

Control Room opens Friday at Ritz Five. See Sam Adams' review on p. 52.