Media Lies

Why is anyone amazed at media lies? Those who comprise the media have lied to the American people since before the Vietnam War. It was the Vietnam war, however, that gave new impetus to media lies.

Media lies about the conflict in Vietnam seemed to skyrocket during the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive. Before Tet, the North's National Liberation Front and the North Vietnamese Army spent months infiltrating South Vietnam. Beginning on January 31, 1968 Communist North Vietnamese soldiers and infiltrators attacked 100 cities in South Vietnam. The offensive lasted 26 days with Communist casualties in the multiple thousands and U.S. killed numbering 150. The worst fighting centered on Hue resulting in the death of thousands of Communist soldiers and civilians. One photograph shocked the American public. It was a photograph of a captured North Vietnamese infiltrator being brutally shot on the streets of Saigon. The captured Communist's hands were tied behind his back.

The American media showed this picture, which won a Pulitzer prize for photography, with little comment. Never mind that the man, a Viet Cong infiltrator and since out of uniform considered a spy, summarily faced immediate execution which is the fate most captured spies face in wartime.

In addition, the American press highlighted civilian deaths with little concern as to who caused those deaths. It is strange, too, since the press made little note of the massive civilian deaths in the fire bombing of Dresden or the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The press, because of liberal opposition to the war, reported what it wanted to report and put a massive spin on the rest.

Listening to the great Walter Conkite on the evening news, you heard again and again how American forces lost the Tet Offensive, the greatest media lie of the period. The American media, and a minority of Americans, opposed the Vietnam War, but the media bears the responsibility for stirring up opposition to the war.

(One of the best sources to help gain understanding of American military strategy and an evaluation of American forces in Vietnam is Victor Dais Hanson, "Carnage and Culture." In this book Hanson notes through case studies of western battles from the times of Greeks to the present, that American strength on the battlefield is not simply the result of superior armaments and technology. American strength relies on that to be sure, but under girding the technology is America's freedom, entrepreneurial spirit, resilience, and willingness to consider points of view regardless of rank.)

From Vietnam to the present, the media has adopted whatever the left wants. They have twisted the truth repeatedly in their lies to the American people. Over the years from 1968 to the present the lies only got worse. Now, with few exceptions, the media cannot be trusted to give us unbiased "facts only" truth.

I know it is difficult to avoid sprinkling personal bias in the stores reported. When I took a class in reporting at Kansas State University it became obvious to me how any reporting from the majority of students tended to move left. I seriously doubt many recognized their perspective as bias because they had been inundated with such thinking since grade school.

My point: Listen for the spin and do your best to identify the bias. By the way, reporting and opinion pundits on Fox aren't innocent of presenting a biased perspective. Theirs just tends to move more toward the right. Thus, be careful and seek out facts on your own. And...if you are Christian, let Romans 13 help you sort out the role of government and apply it to the political realities of today.