The "characters" followed around in this film and who are commenting on-the-fly are interesting. Overall, if you have a good understanding of American culture, which the Al Jazeera personnel do not, it is frustrating to see the continuous misunderstandings, misinterpretations, unrealistic expectations between the cultures.
Americans are completely acclimated to media coverage, whereas unfettered media is new to the Arab world. This alone colors the intent, interpretation, and basic understanding of veracity to any reported event. (If you don't want to know anything about the contents of the film at all, here is the spoiler.) In one scene, a Jazeera employee rants that the Americans claim to have captured a certain bridge, which is not possible because there is no bridge in the area. Simultaenously, (his rant continues)the Americans are claiming they are headed to that area. How, he asks, can the Americans capture a bridge in a place where they are not? His conclusion is that the Americans therefore completely lied about capturing any bridge. Several other cases are more likely: the Americans are in error about the bridge location; (or) the Jazeera employee forgot about a bridge that IS in the area; (or)they could have installed a temporary bridge themselves in order to control the area and it was reported "captured" instead of "installed"; (or) a small "forward" unit captured a bridge in an area that the main force of the Marines are, in fact, headed toward, and they intentionally misreported the city so as to not reveal their true location for tactical reasons. It is also possible that this is misinformation being supplied for a military purpose. But just to conclude, as the worker does, that Americans are randomly reporting nonsense is fairly irrational, and it's important to see this in the documentary. Worthwhile piece.
Americans are completely acclimated to media coverage, whereas unfettered media is new to the Arab world. This alone colors the intent, interpretation, and basic understanding of veracity to any reported event. (If you don't want to know anything about the contents of the film at all, here is the spoiler.) In one scene, a Jazeera employee rants that the Americans claim to have captured a certain bridge, which is not possible because there is no bridge in the area. Simultaenously, (his rant continues)the Americans are claiming they are headed to that area. How, he asks, can the Americans capture a bridge in a place where they are not? His conclusion is that the Americans therefore completely lied about capturing any bridge. Several other cases are more likely: the Americans are in error about the bridge location; (or) the Jazeera employee forgot about a bridge that IS in the area; (or)they could have installed a temporary bridge themselves in order to control the area and it was reported "captured" instead of "installed"; (or) a small "forward" unit captured a bridge in an area that the main force of the Marines are, in fact, headed toward, and they intentionally misreported the city so as to not reveal their true location for tactical reasons. It is also possible that this is misinformation being supplied for a military purpose. But just to conclude, as the worker does, that Americans are randomly reporting nonsense is fairly irrational, and it's important to see this in the documentary. Worthwhile piece.