Uncensored war - acceptable?

Question

I am doing an extended essay for one of my courses on the Vietnam war. If i am not mistaken it was the first uncensored war. this means the photographers were free to take photos and publish them whenever or wherever they pleased.

is this graphic and horrific view that is given to the public of war acceptable or not? give reasons please of why or why not. is it better to see what war is like or to be oblivious?

any other suggestions on what i could talk about is accepted but i am already talking about 2 photographers so dont suggest more please :D

THANK YOU!

Answer 1

The Vietnam war was graphically depicted on television, and in other media, but to say there was no censorship would be wrong.

There were certain situations that were not reported on due to military and intelligence agencies in the national interest.

There were other stories that were self censored by the media as they were too graphic, and disturbing to be broadcast into the public homes.

Answer 2

Bgee2001 is correct.

But let me expand that first answer because I wrote a book on the news media coverage of Vietnam and was a photographer in that war.

While absolutely true that the news media did not face censorship (President Johnson brought up censorship three times but never had the political power to pull it off) there are separate issues about taking photographs and publishing them.

Many U.S. news outlets, staffed by veterans of World War II, were very reluctant to publish articles -- and especially photographs -- which showed U.S. troops in questionable circumstances.

The simple case of Morley Safer reporting for CBS News on the torching of homes -- the Zippo lighter case -- was an early example.  There were many others, such as video footage of enemy bodies being lifted by Chinook in a net to be dumped in the jungle.

And, of course, there was the photographic record of the My Lai massacre which some American newspapers refused to run.  Some other news publications refused to run Nick Ut's photo of the burned girl after the South Vietnamese dropped napalm on her village...citing the photograph was "obscene" because she was a naked minor. There was similar opposition to Eddie Adams photograph of Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing the Viet Cong fighter during the Tet Offensive.  Another early example was Malcom Browne's AP photo of the burning Buddhist monk.

As for your further question, I believe graphic and horrific views of war should be available so people around the world can understand the inhuman nature of conflicts.  Whether people are being hacked with a machete or wearing the firey necklace of a burning tire...their painful end should have some meaning and not be ignored.  As horrible as these images are, I think they should be available to the public.  

Although photographers had complete freedom in Vietnam, I also know they were very sensitive about the photographs they captured.  In just about every case of wounded or dead Americans the soldiers would be nearly evenly split -- half did not want their buddies shown and the other half of the unit would want the people at home to know what they were enduring.

I am curious about the identies of the two photographers you are writing about in your paper.  Can you add their names to your question?

Hope this answer helps you.

Answer 3

Look in the real world.

If it's acceptable.

No one care about it.

If not acceptable.

No one care about it too.

It's not uncensored the problems.

It's the children getting hit on the head with the Book of the Dead.

With the dead Mummies being "Reincarnated" from the graveyards of failures and horrors of the past from the graveyards of different ghostly ancestor's culture and custom.

Creaking and rattling with empty skeleton of skull and bones with two empty eye sockets from the twilight zone could no longer differentiates on what went wrong out there in different time zone.

Luke 6.39-40,41-45,46-49

What do you think?

Answer 4

yep it was, thats why we lost it, media telling lies all the time.