Jehane Noujaim, the daughter of a U.S.-born mother and an Egyptian-born father, will speak at the International Forum on Human Rights about her 2004 documentary, “Control Room.” The film depicts the differing editorial approaches of U.S. and Arab news agencies, who covered the 2003 Iraq war.
Noujaim began her media career as a photographer. Two years later, when she was only 18, her photographs of an impoverished Egyptian village were featured by the U.N. Conference on Population and Development.
She graduated from Harvard in Visual Arts and Philosophy in 1996. She worked for MTV’s News and Documentary division. With Chris Hegedus, directed the documentary “Startup.com,” about two New Yorkers who want to launch their own Internet venture.
In 2006, she won a Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) prize for her work. Along with her $100,000 award, she got to make a wish. She wished for a day when the world could get together through film. Her dream came to fruition the next year with the global broadcast of “Pangea Day,” a program of films from around the world.
When the prospect of war in Iraq was eminent, Noujaim flew to Qatar. The small country on the Persian Gulf hosts Al-Jazeera and the United States Central Command, already in charge of the war in Afghanistan. Before the war, Noujaim noticed that audiences in the United States and in the Middle East were receiving conflicting views of the war.
She wanted to dig deeper and grasp a better idea as to how this could be. In her film, Western reporters sometimes relied solely on U.S. military information for their reports. In contrast, Al-Jazeera reporters challenged public information officers’ refusal to grant information. These reporters were showing the fatal brutality of the war, from the Arab citizen’s point-of-view. The film also shows the mixed feelings many in the Arab world feel for the West.
After the bombing of Iraq, the head of Al-Jazeera confessed that, if given the opportunity, he would take a job with Fox News to exchange the “Arab nightmare” for the American dream. He would like his children to study and live in the United States, rather than live in this war zone.
Not only exposing the Western press’s reluctance, “Control Room” shows a different side of Al-Jazeera, perceived in the U.S. as helping Al Qaeda show Osama bin Laden’s propaganda videos. Here in the United States, we know of our own losses, but rarely do we hear stories of civilians killed in the chaos of war. The death of Al-Jazeera reporter Tariq Ayoub during a U.S. bombing of the network’s bureau deeply moved the Arab world, but most of us did not even know about it.
Empathy for war victims is hard to come by when we only show the perspective of our own people or country. It is this disconnect among cultures that Noujaim seeks to bridge through film.
“I don’t know whether a film can change the world,” Noujaim said at the TED conference, “But I know that it starts, I know the power of it. I know that it starts people thinking about how to change the world.”
Noujaim’s lecture and the screening of “Control Room” will be held tonight at 7:00 p.m. in the Student Union Ballrooms. Admission is free.
A good, well-written piece, Anthony. A clear, mature, yet vibrant perspective comes through the article. Something I cannot say for most articles published on the CSULB campus. You captured the essential tone, spirit, and nature of Ms. Noujaim’s commitment – and with conscientious depth and breadth within standard length constraints. I have seen “Control Room,” thanks to Professor Raul Reis’s global media (journalism) course. It is one of the best documentaries I have seen — made me want to sign up for a gig at Al-Jazeera, wherever solid journalism is practiced, valued, and supported! Or wherever thoughtful, dedicated journalists, like you, abound.