Massacres and Watchmen: How the My Lai massacres Changed War Reporting Freedom of the press is a right held very dear by Americans, but out of what was this devotion to the media born? Unfortunately, that answer is not as simple as one event, one person, or one story. The government is an integral part of our daily lives which oversees all and controls most. Many of the instances that have gleaned the admiration of the American people for the press have undermined this, occasionally, overreaching powerhouse. “Woodstein” and Watergate, Edward Snowden and the NSA, and Seymour Hersh and My Lai exposed the hidden wrongs of the US government with staggeringly influential power to change both the government and journalism. Here, we will be focusing on the fallout from Hersh’s reports on the 1968 massacres at My Lai (“Pinkville”), Vietnam. With the exposer of US Army immorality by Seymour Hersh of the St. Louis Dispatch in a series of reports the field of war journalism was forever changed into two distinct eras, Pre and post Vietnam and fundamentally changed the journalist, military relationship. …show more content…
With the initiation of World War One governments on both sides of the Atlantic began to exhibit control over war correspondents, keeping tabs on where and who they were with, often through incentives. Good public opinion abounded for the wars and the war correspondents (Smith, 2012). By the second world war people would flood into movie theaters to receive news of the previous week’s events on the war front, idolizing reporters (Siegel, 2003). Unsurprisingly, such reports often biased and focused on the heroisms of the allies, any atrocities were assumed better left unsaid (Smith,
Alecia Moore Chapter 13 How did the official version of the My Lai assault differ from the soldiers’ testimonies? Why were they so different from each other? On March 16, 1968 in a village called My Lai “U.S. forces killed 128 enemy troops” (Gorn et al 2010), this is what the Army’s Public Information Department released.
Many people working in the news media claim that the press gives a perfectly objective and unbiased portrayal of events. Even the most sincerely objective reporters and editors express bias simply by choosing what facts to include and what to leave out when writing news stories. In the reporting of Bowe Bergdahl, bias can be seen. The report done by Megyn Kelly on Bowe Bergdahl shows more signs of bias then the report done by Jake Trapper. Through careful analysis, Megyn Kelly’s reporting seems more biased based on the emphasis of the story, tone, and the sources, words on the screen and the pictures on the screen.
U.S. soldiers are trained to follow orders, which is exactly what they did as hundreds of villagers were indiscriminately killed in the My Lai Massacre. Even if the soldiers were acting under confusing orders, that is a failure of the chain of command, and even if the killings were orchestrated by a few incompetent officers, those officers never should have been placed in leadership roles. The real tragedy of My Lai represents an entire system of willful negligence and lack of accountability on the part of the military. Thus the responsibility for the massacre lies with the men involved, but also with the military chain of command that gave the order and then tried to cover it up.
In the Vietnam war the United States lost everything that made it a superior defender for freedom and justice. We lost money and the support of American and South Vietnam citizens, because of that we lost our confidence and power. Without having confidence and feeling powerless, it questions whether we are capable of handling our nation 's conflicts while supporting South VIetnam. During the war the United States lost around $350-900 billion total in the Vietnam war (www.the vietnam war.info, 2014).
A man by the name of Arnold Gingrich, publisher of Esquire magazine, responded to the public hostility by stating “readers should ask themselves ‘what would you have done, if you had been there, and in this man’s shoes?”’ (Jones 258). Arnold posed a vital question that many people did not think of while discussing the My Lai Massacre. Those who persecute Calley must also take into consideration the sheer amounts of exasperation and turmoil that the U.S. troops were experiencing in Vietnam. Just two days before they entered the My Lai village, Charlie Company lost a sergeant on the account of a booby trap.
On the morning of March 16th 1968, over 500 Vietnamese civilians, including unarmed men, women, children and elderly, were brutally slaughtered in the village of My Lai by the Us military soldiers of the Charlie Company, a unit of the Americans division 11th Infantry brigade, under the leadership of Captain Ernest Medina. The My Lai massacre was seen as one of the most brutal events to have happened in American military history and is a clear demonstration of the corruption that is within the American military. Senior officers, such as Medina, attempted to try and cover up what had occurred in My Lai but failed to do so. The massacre was later revealed after an investigation was ordered and conducted, due to Ron Ridenhour, “a former member
During the years of the Second World War, 20th century technology such as the radio had become more affordable to a wider range of socio-economic classes in Britain. The result of this new medium for communication was the effective and widespread transmission of current events to an increasingly diverse audience. Through audio experiences of speeches, live reports and the incorporation of imperial themes into entertainment programming, an audience unprecedented in both size and diversity came into closer contact with current events, and ultimately became a key component in creating feelings of national identity and solidarity as well as raising home front morale. At the outset of war, the government shut down television leaving radio to take
The inadequacy of censorship was just part of the reason leading to the bombardment of news coverage. However, the underlying reason was the war itself. Why did Americans protest the war? When the first coffin was sent home, they considered that was a symbol of heroic sacrifice. Nevertheless, when many of them were returned, inherently, many questions were asked.
It left an indelible stain on America’s record in Vietnam, the nation’s longest, least popular, and most controversial war. It raises fundamental questions about the American way of war, US military leadership in Vietnam, and the difficulties of fighting insurgencies, a problem of major contemporary concern. It needs to be remembered and studied. The murder of more than 400 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai and My Khe by US soldiers on March 16, 1968, stands as one of the darkest days in the nation’s military history. My Lai and My Kei have been not too big but it became big when 400 Vietnamese citizens were killed by United States soldiers.
Many people do not know what happened overseas between the United States and other troops, unless you were there to witness it. There are many different things that have been covered up by the government and many of these occurrences do ultimately come out, but some situations do not. The My Lai Massacre was one of the many things that was being covered up by the government and army, that got out and caused a lot of controversy. Seymour Hersh is the journalist that revealed the real truth about what happened in My Lai. Seymour Hersh acted in accordance with the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics to uncover the truth about the My Lai Massacre.
In “The War Photo No One Would Publish”, the author Torie Rose DeGhett depicts the meaning behind censorship along with the technicalities that it has on public views. DeGhett proposes that pictures should always be published so the viewers can get a comprehensive detailed effect of what is happening around the world they inhabit. DeGhett also proposes the idea that “it’s hard to calculate the consequences of a photographs absence” (DeGhett 74). This statement leads to the idea of censorship causing the argument of whether certain media outlooks should be censored to the public or not. A media source such as TMZ is a great example that shows how it undermines the right of censorship of others privacy to make a manipulated celebrity story that
People often discuss America’s involvement in foreign affairs as part of an identifier for political opinions, policy, and justice. Hearing an opinion on America’s involvement in foreign affairs, positive or negative, is much less effective in determining where your values lie than experiencing the tragedy and horror second-hand through the lives of the characters. Journalism possesses a beautiful, truly invaluable lack in biases and ability to present facts. Where it lacks is in situations like this, where a certain pathos is needed to connect to the human nature. I recognize sometimes that is not even enough.
Journalists were able to use these technological advances to help collect more pictures, videos, and audio recordings than ever before. Yet now, the government had a big problem on their hands, controlling the access and the knowledge the media is allowed in and around the battlefield. David Anderson, of the Columbia University Press stated, “With inadequate government controls, the media was now able to publish uncensored pictures and videos showing the brutality of the war in Vietnam and, thus, vastly influenced American public opinion in unprecedented proportion.” Before the start of the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam war, in the late 1950’s, the press had little to no interest at all in Vietnam, with most reports focusing on the rise of communism in the country. This lack of interest wouldn’t last as by the end of 1960, the death of civillians in a rebellion against the president sparked major interest among the American media.
It wasn’t until the early hours of the following morning that the shooting finally stopped. The sun brought itself up over the ridge to illuminate the awfulness of the previous night. Bodies lay in the streets, some still gripping their weapons, some never touched one. Wounded found their way into corners and under cover waiting for help. Some townspeople were found bound and gagged, held at gunpoint.
Scott MacFarlane measures the social turmoil of the times “at a level unseen since the Civil War. The book reading public was clamoring for insight into what was happening on the streets of America” (MacFarlane 133). Armies was a new window onto the anti-war movement. We will discuss how the mainstream media kept Americans in the dark about the anti-war movement. Readers were witness to Mailer’s own perspective of the counterculture which was not always exhortative: “It was the children in whom Mailer had some hope, a gloomy hope.