Topic: Question for highschool students about Vietnam

godofthunder9010 · December 13th, 2005

Missileer has the right of it. Journalism has been an integral part of every war since the Civil War, but I don't doubt it was included well before then. I'm just unaware of any assigned journalists to the US Military prior to the Civil War.

One point that the teacher or whoever said that "Imbedded reporting is an entirely new concept." had is the following: Gulf War I was the first large-scale conflict that the United States had been in since Vietnam. Because Presidient Bush and his administration was unwilling to damn our military to yet another run in with unrestricted journalist access to everything and anything, they were highly restrictive of who was allowed to know what, etc. Frankly, I think they were right to do so based on the following. Right in the middle of hostilities, some journalist asks, "So can you tell us where our troops are right this moment?" There is little doubt that unrestrictive reporting would have led to bad things. Afterall, "We're winning." just isn't a big selling story, now is it?

Old school was that journalists were actually enlisted and the military had a good amount of control of things, keeping the ugly bits out as well as not giving away important information to the enemy.

So in the most recent Iraq war, the journalists were allowed to come along again, but still were pretty restricted. They were allowed largely because the news media had been whining and complaining about being so restricted, and so forth.

December 13th, 2005
godofthunder9010 Tribunus Laticlavius Gear	Missileer has the right of it. Journalism has been an integral part of every war since the Civil War, but I don't doubt it was included well before then. I'm just unaware of any assigned journalists to the US Military prior to the Civil War. One point that the teacher or whoever said that "Imbedded reporting is an entirely new concept." had is the following: Gulf War I was the first large-scale conflict that the United States had been in since Vietnam. Because Presidient Bush and his administration was unwilling to damn our military to yet another run in with unrestricted journalist access to everything and anything, they were highly restrictive of who was allowed to know what, etc. Frankly, I think they were right to do so based on the following. Right in the middle of hostilities, some journalist asks, "So can you tell us where our troops are right this moment?" There is little doubt that unrestrictive reporting would have led to bad things. Afterall, "We're winning." just isn't a big selling story, now is it? Old school was that journalists were actually enlisted and the military had a good amount of control of things, keeping the ugly bits out as well as not giving away important information to the enemy. So in the most recent Iraq war, the journalists were allowed to come along again, but still were pretty restricted. They were allowed largely because the news media had been whining and complaining about being so restricted, and so forth. __________________ "It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it." - General Robert E. Lee Warning, critical pebkac error in the iD10t!! pebkac\wtflolurpwnzd\snafuroflmao.exe called iD10t, iD10t failed to respond!! System in danger!! "It takes a big man to admit when he's wrong. I am NOT a big man." -Chevy Chase Last edited by godofthunder9010; December 13th, 2005 at 00:23.