Josh Rushing, the American star of 2006 TEDPrize winner Jehane Noujaim‘s documentary Control Room has gone and done something very unexpected: he quit the U.S. Military after 14 years to join the English language Al-Jazeera International news station as on-air talent. As you may recall from the film, former marine Rushing, one of the U.S. media spokespersons for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, started off the film spouting the American party line, but grew over the course of the documentary into a much more complicated and sympathetic figure. Fast Company magazine describes in their cover story how many Americans view him as an idiot, or worse a traitor. Find out why Rushing hopes that Al Jazeera International could help repair America’s image not only in the Arab world, but worldwide. In viewing the film, you can see how Rushing was quite affected by his relationship with Al Jazeera reporters; there’s no question that appearing in Control Room literally changed his life.
