Chapter 12

Picture of Vietnam Jungle
By U.S. Army Photograph (San Mateo Public Library [1]) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:101junglevietnam1969.jpg


Chapter 12:Vietnam War Bring the Battlefield into the American Living Room

    The war in Vietnam is a war that will remain one of the most talked about of all time. It was the first war to be shown on television. For the first time in television history Americans actually got to see what was really going on. As Rodger Streitmatter stated "Although those observers are widely divided on whether ending the war was right or wrong decision, they agree that television showed the raw horror of war in ways that print journalism could not. Violence, carnage and human suffering were depicted in withering reality" To me this quote is something that people today in 2011 may not fully understand. Back in the 1960's when this war was starting to be shown on television it was something that had never been seen before. In today's television we may see this stuff every day and not think twice about it but back in the 60's this was a huge deal. This was able to become a reality because of the journalists who went over to cover the war from a first hand account. A reason that I specifically wanted to talk about this was this I really enjoy history. History has always been something that I enjoy so that when I read this chapter it was easier for me to pick on. As I go on describing this chapter I think it is important that you are able to pick up how significant this war actually was.

Flamethrower in Vietnam
By Pearson, CPL, Photographer; Post-Work by W.wolny [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flamethrower_in_Vietnam.jpg

   Now that televisions are in place, people have a better understanding of what is actually taking place. The book talks about how in 1965 a cigarette lighter ignited a firestorm. A group of marines walking into a Vietnamese village. In the village these soldiers took out a cigarette lighter and started burning all the surrounding huts to the ground. Vietnamese peasants were shown running out of the huts before the burned to the ground. In total for the day there were 150 houses burned down, three women were wounded, they killed one baby and they caught four prisoners. There were very mixed emotions about this being shown on the television. Some people saw it as a chance to actually see the true side affects of war while others saw it as portraying American soldiers as "heartless killers". In my opinion I wouldn't have shown this footage. While this footage does help you to show what events are actually transpiring I think in the overall it was used as a device for people against war. I think that what happened here was truly horrible but you don't need to show people in American homes some of the most brutal footage they had. 

Protestors of Vietnam War
See page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Vietnam_War_protesters._1967_Wichita,_Kans_-_NARA_-_283626.tif&page=1

   Since the war is now being broadcast, American viewers start to voice their frustrations at what is actually going on over there. While this topic seems to come up rather frequently when talking about journalism, you could look at Occupy Wall Street to some extent to talk about protesting. When the Vietnam war was going on a large protest started to begin. These anti-war people were stunned and appalled by the brutality of war. Being that this was the first time a war was being shown, you could understand why there was such a large outcry. They showed civilians executing one another on the news which understandably shocked some people. These people anti-war movements did help to get the message across and ultimately it did send a message to some people to get these troops out of there. When you look at Occupy Wall Street which has turned into occupy everything due to the various movements that have been offshoots of it, you see how these protestors can get your attention. I do watch the news and follow CNN online to see what major events are going on but you didn't really hear much about the 99% versus the 1% until Occupy Wall Street really took off. Due to Occupy Wall Street you may start to see some changes that helps the citizens of this country.

Fighting During the Vietnam War
By US military [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Awaiting_second_wave_of_combat_helicopters_during_Operation_Pershing.jpg

      Television is credited with helping to end the Vietnam War. Rodger Streitmatter helps to sum up why the war was ended through the help of television."Television images of Viet Cong penetrating the U.S. Embassy compound, with bodies of GIs lying in camera range, showed the American people that regardless of the politicians and military brass were saying the United States was not winning the war." This quote shows me how if we didn't have televisions coverage back then what really would've happened in the war. Would the death counts being skewed or would it be portrayed that we were indeed winning the war? Luckily with televisions being able to cover the war you actually can see the affects of war. I think it's tough to try and put into words with how television actually changed the coverage of war. I guess a minor comparison you could make would be how live events can be covered with Twitter. Twitter gives you the ability to instantly spread information across the world by simply posting one thing. The thing to take out of this book to me is how much journalism really does shape our world whether you know it or not.

Soldiers During The Vietnam War
By Photo by SP4 Bryan Grigsby (Virtual Vietnam archive) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:25thInfvietnam1968maskb.jpg

Chapter 8

Father Coughlin On Our Right
By TIME Magazine [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elmer_Thomas_and_Charles_Coughlin_on_Time_magazine_1934.jpg


Chapter 8:Father Coughlin: Fomenting Anti-Semitism via The Radio

      Father Coughlin, also known as Charles Edward Coughlin was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1891. He would raise to fame in Detroit after in the 1930's he signed a contract to speak nationwide on CBS radio. Father Coughlin gained fame so quickly that "he was employing 100 clerks to process 80,000 letters a week, and Royal Oak had to build a post office expressly to handle his mail." As Mightier than the Sword by Rodger Streittmatter describes it, Father Coughlin had a very large following and therefore the words that he spoke on the radio were listened to be a vast majority of people. In today's world if you wanted to compare how much viewers this guy had you could look in today's radio. A similarity in terms of viewers could be with Rush Limbaugh radio show or Sean Hannity's radio show. They are the two highest in terms of viewers without any music being involved. People today still have the ability to capture the audience in terms of quotes. You just won't hear it as much today because of the fact there are many different media outlets that will report what is going on.

Picture Of Old Radio Microphone

By Badseed (Own work (Own photo)) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:National_Radio_Foundation_microphone.jpg

    Father Coughlin started to come over heavy criticism after he started publicly promotion anti-semitism on his radio show. Now when talking about anti-semitism it will affect people differently whether it will directly affects them or even if it doesn't affect them they will still have a reaction. Anti- semitism is a heavily talked about topic at times. This is the case also for many different religions or topics. Mightier than the Sword describes how Father Coughlin, said terms like "Jews hoarding gold" and "Bad international Jews." Father Coughlin didn't really care if this affected anyone he was just simply delivering a message no matter if it was completely false. And the viewers that Coughlin had for the time can not be stated enough. Most of the people that did listen could easily believe the things he said and then start delivering these false statements as well as him. 

Man holding one of Father Coughlin Published Documents

Dorothea Lange [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coughlin-Social-Justice-NYC-Lange.jpeg

    A reason that I specifically chose to talk about Father Coughlin is, I can somewhat tie it to me. Not the anti semitism part. I have some family members that are Jewish. My father is Jewish and I consider myself somewhat Jewish although I was never really raised with a religion due to my father being Jewish and my mother being Christian, although I still celebrated each of the holidays. Anti-Semitism I'll see every now and then but it's not even close to prevalent as it was in the past. Father Coughlin actually defended Naziism. His exact quote from Mightier Than the Sword was "Naziism is a defense against communism!" The book talks about how many radio stations immediately dropped him once he stated this sentence. He stated this sentence right around the start of World War II so tensions were very high. With tensions high, he show how much of a bigot he is to make these hateful statements. I would say that if he had tried something like that today he would have been immediately fired and reprimanded but back in 1939 he was still allowed to speak on the radio. 

Picture of A Radio Tower

By Craig Franklin en:User:Lankiveil (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Narromine_-_Radio_Tower.jpg

    Once being reprimanded Father Coughlin didn't stop there. As the book puts it he says, "And when your rights have been challenged, when all civil liberty has succumbed before the invaders, then may Christians meet force with force" What Father Coughlin was telling his listeners was to attack any Jewish people they saw. That lead to "Coughlin storm troopers" who "Pushed Jews off sidewalks, battered them with verbal insults, and baited them into Nazi-like street brawls where brass knuckles and knives were the weapons of choice." Like the book is telling you this is extremely disturbing to hear.  Even for the time being 1939 I don't understand how they could let this guy speak on the air when all he says is stuff that is extremely anti-Semitic. I guess you can see how far we've come at times when you see that thankfully you don't have many issues like that today around a little over sixty years later. 

Picture of Older Radio

By Fabiomoie (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Radio_Marea.jpg