Media Effects Of The Vietnam War

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Media Effects of the Vietnam War

War is truly a horrific event that unfortunately occurs in our world frequently. There are a variety of ethical questions surrounding war, such as how much should citizens know about the fighting? When it comes to reporting the news, it is the goal of the network to report the news first. The benefit to this is people will turn to them first when it comes to breaking stories. However if the news is delivered based on speed and not accuracy this can be harmful to society. War is a very serious event and should not be taken lightly. Therefore, reporters must make sure facts are correct and unbiased. In both the Vietnam War and our current war we see reporters going to extreme measures to be the first to report information that may have been inaccurate.

There was certainly not a lack of information to report when it came to the Vietnam War. Unfortunately some of this information was highly inaccurate. Such as the event that started the war. The battle of Tonkin was proved to have been false as reported by a Japanese Newswire in July 1984. In the bay it was reported outside Vietnam that the North Vietnamese had sunk a US ship killing just two soldiers. The American people heard this and became outraged, and the congress gave President Lyndon B. Johnson a blank check to run the war. It was later discovered the tragedy never even occurred. The news networks reported this event and the American Government confirmed the false event and the war began, as the newswire reports. If this lie was never reported chances are the war would have never started. An Asian news source reported the Gulf of Tonkin as an illusion from the start (Japanese Newswire, Lexis Nexis), this proved to be true but what Americans at the time period would believe the Asian News Networks. This can easily be related to the current war in Iraq. In order to get the war underway the administration made claims of weapons of mass destruction that could potentially harm us. If American media was not allowed into these war situations the government could simply make up another lie and point out old weapons found in Iraq and there would be no proof of proving these weapons old.

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