Thursday, September 19, 2019
Media and the Military :: Media Argumentative Persuasive Argument
Media and the Military         During the Vietnam War the media was left unchecked and brought the wartime images of death and carnage into America's living room. These images served as morale killers and eventually turned much of the public against its own government. During the Gulf War on the other hand, the military filtered what reached the public's eye and morale was kept to all time highs. In wartime the government should be able to manipulate public opinion by controlling the media.         War is not pretty, and it is not for the weak at heart. Images of war should not be broadcast into living rooms live. During the Vietnam conflict this is what happened. Pictures and real time video of our troops being slaughtered during battles of the Tet offensive and the siege of Khe Sahn were sent home for all of America to see (Klein 50-51). Again, war is not pretty and the way you keep morale up is you don't let the public know how bad war really is.         Television is one of the most powerful tools of media and â€Å"by the mid 1960's television had become the most important source for news for most of the American public, and beyond that, perhaps, the most powerful single influence on the public.†(Hallin 106) So people trusted what reporters like Walter Cronkite were telling them. They believed it when NBC journalists told them things like, â€Å" the Marines are so bogged down in Hue that nobody will predict when the battle would end†¦more than 500 marines have been wounded and over 100 dead since the in Hue began.†(Klein 51) Don't get the wrong idea though, these things really happened but the public didn't need to know it.         The constitution and 1st amendment still mean something but national security should come first. People rioting all over the country in anti war protests should be an issue of national security. Without the support of your homefront no country can win a war, especially a foreign war (Franklin 250). It is impossible to get support at home when NBC is showing them pictures of their boys getting massacred every night on the nightly news.         On the other hand, during the Gulf War in Iraq the horrors of war still existed, maybe not to the same extent, but they were there nonetheless. These horrors however where kept out of our living rooms by systematic filtering by the US army. Now the army didn't just seize tapes and erase bad parts. Very few reporters and cameras were allowed to the front lines.
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