Posted on 04/08/2012 11:29:25 AM PDT by smoothsailing
April 1989 archive
In a future war involving U.S. soldiers what would a TV reporter do if he learned the enemy troops with which he was traveling were about to launch a surprise attack on an American unit? That's just the question Harvard University professor Charles Ogletree Jr, as moderator of PBS' Ethics in America series, posed to ABC anchor Peter Jennings and 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace. Both agreed getting ambush footage for the evening news would come before warning the U.S. troops.
For the March 7 installment on battlefield ethics Ogletree set up a theoretical war between the North Kosanese and the U.S.-supported South Kosanese. At first Jennings responded: "If I was with a North Kosanese unit that came upon Americans, I think I personally would do what I could to warn the Americans."
Wallace countered that other reporters, including himself, "would regard it simply as another story that they are there to cover." Jennings' position bewildered Wallace: "I'm a little bit of a loss to understand why, because you are an American, you would not have covered that story."
"Don't you have a higher duty as an American citizen to do all you can to save the lives of soldiers rather than this journalistic ethic of reporting fact?" Ogletree asked. Without hesitating Wallace responded: "No, you don't have higher duty... you're a reporter." This convinces Jennings, who concedes, "I think he's right too, I chickened out."
Ogletree turns to Brent Scrowcroft, now the National Security Adviser, who argues "you're Americans first, and you're journalists second." Wallace is mystified by the concept, wondering "what in the world is wrong with photographing this attack by North Kosanese on American soldiers?" Retired General William Westmoreland then points out that "it would be repugnant to the American listening public to see on film an ambush of an American platoon by our national enemy."
A few minutes later Ogletree notes the "venomous reaction" from George Connell, a Marine Corps Colonel. "I feel utter contempt. Two days later they're both walking off my hilltop, they're two hundred yards away and they get ambushed. And they're lying there wounded. And they're going to expect I'm going to send Marines up there to get them. They're just journalists, they're not Americans."
Wallace and Jennings agree, "it's a fair reaction." The discussion concludes as Connell says: "But I'll do it. And that's what makes me so contemptuous of them. And Marines will die, going to get a couple of journalists."
All you have to know about Mike Wallace is that when the tables were turned on him, he folded like a cheap lawn chair. Could dish it out, but could not take it in. Sounds like almost every liberal I know.
All you have to know about Mike Wallace is that when the tables were turned on him, he folded like a cheap lawn chair. Could dish it out, but could not take it in. Sounds like almost every liberal I know.
Since the end of WWII the media has frequently been involved in the promotion of sedition, treason and vice addiction. It invariably promotes the aforementioned under the guise of “objectivity.”
Jennings wasn’t even a US citizen at the time...so it was really a hypothetical.
Happy Easter.
I'll shut up now.
“They’re just journalists, they’re not Americans.”
They’re the official spokepersons for the Dumocraps and enemies of the American people. Even Tecumseh Sherman knew they were enemies of the military he truly wanted them shot on sight.
timely post
I believe it’s because when they where educated they where quietly indoctrinated into communism. For many it was so subtle that they didn’t even detect it. They have been convinced that breaking down tradition is good, the constitution is outdated, killing unborn children helps the health of a woman and giving up freedom and liberty for universal healthcare is a right.
It’s not just the journalist, it’s otherwise normal Americans. They have been blinded to what is going on. They are losing everything and have been conditioned to think it is good.
I watched that exchanged and was outraged at the idea of fellow Americans,by their inaction,killing servicemen that was protecting them.
Pray for Wallace’s family. But Mike should be sent to the firey depth.
They’re the official spokepersons for the Dumocraps and enemies of the American people. Even Tecumseh Sherman knew they were enemies of the military he truly wanted them shot on sight.
______________
I know many southerners are horrified by General Sherman. But from my study of history, he was right more often than not. And his policy of making War on the civilian populace supporting the Armies of the south while horrific in and of itself did assist in shortening the War.
And that policy was used again in World War II in the Air Bombing Campaigns in Europe and Japan.
And he was right about the Journolists, even then they had become rabble-rousers and de-facto enemy agents and spies.
As some historians have shown collapse comes to all civilizations. We are now experiencing ours. Collapse is a process and takes time. One specific symptom is showing absolutely no power of resistance to the ongoing Third World conquest, indeed many are even helping it. It looks like the West will be the only civilization in history to be conquered solely through the medium of words; i.e. some Third Worlder only has to cry “Racism” and thousands flee in abject terror.
When I was in school I watched the PBS round tables. I still remember seeing that particular round table. I was disgusted and I never ever believed a word “American” journalists had to say about any of our military involvements from that day forward. It is amazing how one show colored my view of journalism for the rest of my life. Job well done, Mr. Wallace and Peter Jennings!
Colonel George Connell was a hero to me that day. Shame LSM.
Mike Wallace is a selfish or was a selfish evil little man.
“And that policy was used again in World War II in the Air Bombing Campaigns in Europe and Japan.”
Yup. No one was more sickened by the daily bombing raids on Tokyo more than Curtis Lemay, USAF commander after he got the greenlight from McArthur to pummel Tokyo. But he knew he had to do it because he wrote in his autobiography, it was simply they surrender or American boys go in for another invasion and they will die. It was a necessity. Regarding the Iraq War, the media tried their best to ruin American soldiers lives but the American people saw thru their BS.
If American citizens who happen to be working on the battlefield as reporters, and decide that it is more important to ‘get the story’, ‘get the footage’, ‘get the pictures’ instead of trying to help or save their fellow Americans, then their families better not bitch and whine when U.S. troops put those traitorous sons o’ bitches right in the cross hairs and blast their asses away with the rest of the enemy forces.
The left started the capture of our colleges and universities in the 1930’s. The war and returning veterans slowed it down for a while. For example, my English professor in 1957 was a retired Marine colonel who had fought on Guadacanal, he was very conservative rejecting a lot of trash literature that was being pumped out. Others were very left leaning, i.e. my government professor. In short the 1950’s and early 1960’s were transitional. Apparently the left totally captured the colleges and universities in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
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