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New York Observer: Vietnam got more TV coverage than Iraq

T

toby

Guest
Intresting article here.<P ID="signature">______________
<a href=http://blog.spotteddogs.org/blog/>Random Observations on Life, the Universe and Television</a></P>
 
> Intresting article here.
>
Interesting but not quite a fair comparison. Times have changed. The biggest issue in the Vietnam war was the draft. It was grossly unfair. It allowed anyone with an ounce of brains to get out of going.

I am very liberal but have no problem with this war. These are all volunteers. They all wanted to go into the army. If they don't want to stay all they do is have to say "I'm gay." And they'd be discharged. And there isn't the shame of being gay in the 60s. (And yes I know people that have been kicked out of Iraq because they were found out ot be gay, so it does happen even now)

The political climate is so different now. I find it hard to imagine African-Americans doing the passive marches that they did in the 60s. Standing there while southern Mayors turned firehoses on them. That technique was highly sucsessful and made good TV coverage. But I can't see it happening today.

And also Iraq war is over. It's now a cleanup operation. American never came close to breaking the Viet Cong or North Vietnam. What people fail to realize is the Sunnis WANT THE AMERICANS to stay in Iraq. This is why they are fighting so hard.

The Sunnis know without the Americans the Shi'ites and Kurds are going to "get even" very quickly. So they are acting saying they want to drive out the Americans, when they only do enough to keep the American there. Even as the Sunnis are car bombing Yanks, the Americans are protecting them.

Totally different wars. Totally different social and political climate. But a good article none the less.<P ID="signature">______________
Once I figured out the meaning of life....Then I forgot to write it down.</P>
 
Both Toby and Markxxx had some good comments about this.

Had the Vietnam war occured today, with the modern newsgathering technology we now have, chances are it would have taken up even more airtime on the broadcast networks' evening newscasts. We'd probably have at least one live battlefield report every night on the evening news ("We're live in Da Nang, where it is already mid-morning on Monday, and as you can see Walter, American troops and the Viet Cong are in a fierce fire-fight for control of this city...").

And the cable news channels would also have devoted lots of hours of coverage.

On the other hand, had the Iraq war occured in the late 1960's or early 1970's, there probably would have been less TV coverage because film would have had to have been taken out of the battle zone and flown to Tel Aviv, Athens, or London to be fed by satellite to the 'States, much like Vietnam batlefield footage was flown to Tokyo to be uplinked to a satellite to be fed back home. In either case, film would be at least 24 hours old by the time it was shown on the evening newscasts.

Vietnam and Iraq are different wars in different eras as regards newsgathering technology. The only way TV coverage of these two wars can be compared would be to look at what television news technology was available then and what is available now and to guess as to how the available technology would have affected how war could have been covered then compared to how it is covered now.
 
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