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Steven Spielberg's Film: The Post Vietnam War

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Steven Spielberg's new critically acclaimed film, "The Post," centers around the conflict surrounding the release of Pentagon files regarding the Vietnam War. Though the film focuses on the journalism events post-war, journalism was a big deal during the war. Governments heavily controlled previous war coverage and most footage were censored, but this was not the case for the Vietnam war. The government allowed the media to cover as much as they wanted from the war, but they had to be present in the scene to do so. Hundreds of journalists flew to Vietnam to cover the history-making event. Unfortunately, 63 journalism were either killed or went missing during the war. We will look at the stories and conflicts surrounding the war and the media …show more content…

The united states came into the conflict as an effort to stop Vietnam from becoming a communist after they won their freedom from France. In 1954, the Geneva convention split Vietnam into north and south; this worried America as they thought that if Vietnam became communist, Asia would become communist. North Vietnam tried to convince south Vietnam to turn to communism, and the US joined forces with south Vietnam to convince North Vietnam to turn to democracy. This is how the most controversial war began.
The Vietnam war is most commonly known as the first television war; this came from the real, unfiltered depiction of the war. The media diverged from the censored and optimistic depiction of the war to show a more real and unfiltered approach. The television ownership in American households skyrocketed, media cross-ownership is the ownership of multiple media outlets by a company or person, the war created household names in news coverage such as NBC, CBS, and ABC. All their programming was live and originated in New York City, just like today's media, but this wasn't always the …show more content…

A section in the Pentagon papers titled "Kennedy commitments and Programs" sated the following "We must note that South Vietnam (unlike any of the other countries in Southeast Asia) was essentially the creation of the United States." As well as sub-section called "Special American Commitment to Vietnam" states that the US helped support Ngo Dinh Diem's regime and election. The papers quote "Without the threat of U.S. intervention, South Vietnam could not have refused even to discuss the elections called for in 1956 under the Geneva settlement without being immediately overrun by the Viet Minh armies." "Without U.S. aid in the years following, the Diem regime certainly, and an independent South Vietnam almost as certainly, could not have survived." As well as the overthrowing of his

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Two Days in October is a documentary that covers the multidimensional story of the battle of Ong Thanh in Vietnam and the student protests at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This film shows examples of different techniques used that assist journalists when telling the story of October, 1967. The way they tell the story of the of the student protest at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the front line of the Vietnam War exposes some of the nuances and demonstrates that the topic was not as simplistic as people viewed it at the time. While using similar techniques to what was used in the documentary “Two Days in October”, Journalists of today can also demonstrate the complexity of multidimensional stories. These are stories that are not black and white, but that look at everyone’s perspective and ideals.

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Specifically how the horrifying images brought American citizens to protest in the form of sit-ins and marches. These actions effectively pressuring the government to end the war. Therefore by shielding the public from images such as the photo first described the opportunity to possibly end the war sooner was taken away. The statement is also made that the true job of the media is not to narrate, to write a story, but to simply tell the facts free of bias. That by the media conforming to the “video-game” narrative of the war they went against their own purpose

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With the media increasing its role in informing the American public about the war in detail, along with graphic images, war atrocities, such as the My Lai Massacre, became more difficult to cover up, which stirred even more violent public outcry. Not long after the media broadcasted the massacre, the release of the “Pentagon Papers” diminished what little trust was left of the government. The My Lai Massacre and the Pentagon Papers were two of the greatest contributors to the U.S. government credibility gap because the massacre exposed the horrors of an already controversial war and how far the government would conspire to conceal the truth, and the Pentagon Papers exposed numerous other government cover ups. The My Lai Massacre contributed to the widening credibility gap and mistrust of the U.S. government because it revealed the government’s readiness to cover up atrocities that would add to the criticism of the government’s actions.

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The American perspective of peace holds the image of a world free from the clutches of communism, which is exactly why the Americans aid South Vietnam to begin with. From the Viet Cong (North) perspective, they are fighting to free their country from the American ‘bandits’ (Tram, 2005). The Viet Cong believe that their cause is to give their country independence at long last after being colonized by the French and want to unite the North and South in order to create a strong state under one government. The North Vietnamese perception of freedom is the idea of being a united and independent country, liberated from any outside nation’s rule or influence.

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One of the most controversial wars in history and a turning point in American foreign policy, the emotions and events surrounding the Vietnam War capture the essence of the era. The rise of rebellious youth culture and anti-war and anti-draft movements were key social aspects of American life leading up to and during the fighting. (Doc 2, 3) On the political side, Congress aimed to control the Chief-Executive with legislation such as the War Powers Act of 1973, requiring the president to remove all unreported troops in Vietnam and report any further sent. (Doc 7) To say the country was divided would be a massive understatement.

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With communism on the rise, America is forced to contain communism to stop the domino effect of communism from taking over. With communism taking over the united states is forced to join the war in Vietnam. This war was one of many, but controversy strikes this one hard. The Vietnam War was controversial for a variety of reasons. While the Vietnam War was originally supported due to the containment of communism and the domino effect it sparked controversy due to the credibility gap and the united states army draft.

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Aaron Lord Year 10 SOSE Treaty Of Versailles How harsh were the terms of the Treaty of Versailles on Germany? The Treaty of Versailles was signed on the 28 June 1919 and was the most significant peace treaty that led to the return of peace in Europe containing fifteen parts and 440 articles. Although the armistice was made with Germany to end the fighting on 11 November 1918, it took six months of negotiations to create this peace treaty.

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Ngo Dinh Diem was an American ally in South Vietnam whose inability to stop the Vietcong caused them to be able to thrive in the South. This required increasing American military aid to stop a Communist takeover. Richard Nixon was the President of the United States who ended the Vietnam War. He was also involved in the Watergate scandal. Which eventually caused him to become first president to resign from office.

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The emotional appeal held over the people's heads from the public protests was a heavy coating against the war. Because Vietnam was the first war that was broadcasted across

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The Vietnam War, which lasted from 1954–1975, is one of the most intriguing examples of foreign policy in American history and is notable for being one of the few wars where the U.S. was not the victor, as well having one of the strongest Anti-War movements the nation has seen (). After 1954, Vietnam, which had previously been a French Colony, was split apart during the negotiation for the Indochina Wars, with the northern Democratic Republic of Vietnam led by the Vietnam Communist Party, and the southern State of Vietnam, soon to be the Republic of Vietnam, eventually led by Ngo Dinh Diem (britannica 2). While the United States had already played a role in getting Diem elected, President Eisenhower would continue to provide South Vietnam with

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Breaking news with horrific images shown on television were shown to viewers and went out instantly like the way each battle was going on, which then left the audience “little time to reflect on their meaning, and are accompanied by nearly continuous voice over narration, which they are edited to illustrate” . Veterans seemed to share this idea. In a survey taken by U.S. Army General Officers in 1975, right after the war officially came to the end, it was revealed that media, including television, just caught and showed sensational moments rather than providing a general picture of what were really happening. From the documentary by Patrick Barberis “Vietnam, treason by the media” , it can be seen in order to bring the most updated news about Tet Offensive – the most critical event since the beginning of the war to audiences, CBS editors even had little time or even ignored the task of taking a look at the

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Young men who went off to fight in World War I and World War II were respected and seen as heroes upon their return home. Vietnam veterans who were coming home were seen as criminals and were strongly opposed by the American people. Vietnam was one of the first wars where the media had a strong influence on the people. The media sent reporters to the battlefields in Vietnam to directly report the horrors of war and what the American soldiers were actually doing. People were horrified when they saw all of the civilian injuries and deaths that resulted from artillery and firefights; people saw the American soldiers as the villains rather than the heroes.

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In some World Wars they threaten national survivals and therefore reports and photographs are released and published were they intended to create a sense of morale or to just keep the war effort going. For example, “One answer lies in the contemporary acclaim for photography as a truth-telling art”(Marwil,Jonathan). They say that because some photos of the war tells the truth as to what happen and some photos don’t and with photography you will always know the truth. Some reports and photos that are published from these photojournalists need to carry a certain amount of truth to inform the public in different places so people will know the truth instead of the lies. Some argue that reality is a like a videogame, but in this case it is not and people need to know about the war.

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The surprise nature of America’s attack coupled with the warfare inexperience of many journalists present in Vietnam saw many of them change their perspectives on their countries involvement in the war. During the war, medias role in the war was changing and this then became another “check and balance” for the United States’ government. (Source B) The Vietnam war was considered as a “living room war” in the sense that the battles and casualties were being shown everyday on American television screens as daily television programs. Source B states that the fact that violence was viewed in the homes of many Americans made the anti-war protests to follow “extremely personal and surreal”.

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