Reporting on Iraq - the whole truth?

I've just returned from watching "Control Room", a documentary about Al-Jazeera's coverage of the Iraq war. It was, in essence, filming the filmers. And it set me thinking about the truth and objectivity and (is propoganda too harsh a word?) in the media. Because throughout the movie, the Americans were continually accusing Al-Jazeera of propoganda, of showing only one side of the story. And all the while, those at Al-Jazeera were adamantly proclaiming that they were showing what the Americans were really doing in Iraq (primarily Baghdad), what the American media was glossing over and wouldn't show.

Both were right in their accusations - because Al-Jazeera certainly had an agenda; and that was to show the uglier things that the American presence in Iraq was producing. To them, that was the truth. But it was a version of the truth, just as what Fox News was showing back home was a different version of the truth. While America was basking in the glory of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime (symbolised by the toppling of his statue), the "liberation" of the Iraqi people and fighting terrorism, Al-Jazeera was showing the dead and wounded, both American and Iraqi (which Americans, the media included, have always found unpalatable), the effects of the "precision bombs" that weren't so precise, and the curses against George W. Bush, which the Americans interpreted as cheers for Bush. They surmised that the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue was clever political maneuvering, carried out by mostly Kurdish men who had been brought into the area by American troops, complete with an American and an old Iraqi flag, along with Iraqi currency that Kurds don't use (and could hence tear up in bunches without any twinge of conscience).

But when Al-Jazeera was critisised, often and harshly by American officials who charged the network with incitement, Samir Khader, an editor at the network, pointed to a broadcast showing a crying, wounded child. "Rumsfeld called this incitement," he said. "I call it true journalism. The only true journalism in the world."

Not quite. Because throughout the movie, there were parts where it was obvious that Al Jazeera was far from objective, and its decisions about what to show were certainly selective, chosen to push an agenda. A journalist providing immediate translaton for a US army officer speaking on screen, impatiently shrugged and waved him off when he was done (the soldier obviously couldn't see him, but the gesture clearly showed how the journalist felt about the US troops).

Khader himself, after Al-Jazeera journalist, Tarek Ayoub, was killed when the US military bombed the network's office in Baghdad, proclaimed that he wouldn't allow himself to cry. "It would have been too easy to cry," he said. "To me, this was a crime that needed to be avenged." Is the job of a completely objective media to avenge crime, no matter how close to home the crime has hit? I think not.

The images that Al-Jazeera showed clearly focused on the negative aspects of the war - wounded civilians, a mother who had just been bombed out of her home, people cursing the Americans, and the American President. These were all carefully chosen, to promote a certain image of the war in Iraq.

Neither side -or rather, none of the sides, for surely there are more than two - can lay claim to the whole truth. Each can claim that it is reporting exactly what it sees. But even what it sees, and what it ignores, are choices, and as such, are determined by its own notions, beliefs and yes, with bias. So, it does -perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not- promote its own agenda.

Which leads to another question: why did Jehane Noujaim (the director) choose the Al-Jazeera clips she did, to feature the people she did, and present the views she did? A girl in my class is a friend of hers, so if I find out, I'll post the answer here!