Talk:United States news media and the Vietnam War

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Pndeleo.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 12:03, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2018 and 13 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ndunc1.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 12:03, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Sanity check

Looking at this paragraph... "Before the 1960s, the news media had no interest in Vietnam. Black American journalists followed events only when breaking news happened in the region." I know nothing about the subject matter (hence reading the article) but is this really relating specifically to Black journalists? Or has someone vandalised? If it's accurate, why are Black journalists special as opposed to all the rest? Again I don't know but I'd imagine they were in a considerable minority at that point? 86.174.184.73 (talk) 01:16, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Failure of NPOV?

• Bastardization. You can take your POV tags with a grain of salt (or several pounds if necessary). I really love wiki. What makes it so great is also its greatest weakness. Note the comments on the "biased" and "unsourced" nature of the article. Then look at the article's history. The footnoting has been reduced from 115 citations to less than 50. The bibliography has also been removed. Gee, I wonder why? The author of the article is biased? The revisionist history droolers have struck again. I am the original author of the article, which was created on a whim. How long would it take for the nitpickers and revisionists to show up? Not frackin' long. Good bloody luck to anyone stupid enough to work it out. Dodge those bullets well! RM Gillespie (talk) 14:05, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

With respect (and not being one of the editors in question), you seem to be quite precious about the contents of this article. I appreciate that it must represent a lot of work on your behalf - and I for one am grateful - but perhaps not being quite so combative on the talk page would make others more willing to contribute and improve the article. Just one man's opinion 86.174.184.73 (talk) 01:20, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

"Upon investigation, however, the verity of all three of these suppositions tends to collapse."

This sentance to me seems a little opinionated. I suggest it gets re-worded or removed or cited with a credible source. Rhetth (talk) 01:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

• The author suggests that you read the article, which proves the "verity" of the statement. RM Gillespie (talk) 16:17, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

• The reader may have already read the proof, but since the conclusion comes before the supporting statements, the reader thought that the conclusion needed to include the fact that the collapse was due to the research of historians, or include the main references of the historians' respective works. Rhetth (talk) 03:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

• Excellent. Then re-write the lead to suit yourself. This is, after all, Wikipedia. RM Gillespie (talk) 11:07, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

• True, but since this article is mostly your work, I find it a little more equitable and forgiving if there is a little discussion about it. I've had my work butchered by people who are being "bold" but didn't research why I did what I did, so in case there's something I'm missing, I just want to put it up for discussion. Rhetth (talk

- This isn't an encyclopedia entry, this is someone's research paper for school that they thought would be cool to show off to everyone on the Internet. I'm not criticisng the content, which is well-written; I'm just saying that, in its present form, it does not belong in Wikipedia. - Guest, 18 August 2008

• Geez, let me (the article's author) reiterate, this article was created from nothing. This is wiki. You add your pertinent, factual content. The article is built. This is wiki. This was not a "cool" research paper. You want a "cool" research paper see my The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Escalation of the Vietnam Conflict, 1963-1965, Masters Dissertation, Clemson University, 1994, published three years before McMaster's rip-off.RM Gillespie (talk) 12:15, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

• Addendum. You want a "cool" book? Check out my "Black Ops Vietnam: An Operational History of MACVSOG," published (10/16/2011) by the Naval Institute Press. Oops, no advertising allowed on wiki. Please forgive me. RM Gillespie (talk) 13:54, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Already did.Intothatdarkness (talk) 16:05, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Globalize tag

I've just tagged this article as being US-centric as, despite its title, it only covers the American media. The near complete absence of any coverage of the media in South and North Vietnam, other countries which participated in the war (eg, Australia, New Zealand, etc) and the media in countries not directly involved seems to be a significant shortcoming. It may be appropriate to move this article to United States news media and the Vietnam War. Nick-D (talk) 07:18, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I have moved the article to U.S. news media and the Vietnam War since that is what the article is about, and should be about. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 23:40, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be ignoring "The French Press Agency" which did have Western correspondent in North Vietnam and even supplied a wire service, much like AP or UPI; very few, if any Western outlets would subscribe to it; one that did was the "Pacifica" radio group specifically their New York City outlet, WBAI.Satchmo Sings (talk) 23:47, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikifying Article

I started to change this article from a term paper into an encyclopedic article with the idea it might motivate more knowledgeable editors. To put it mildly I have barely scratched the surface. This article while having more neutral language is still biased towered the view that the media coverage had nothing to do with Americans turning against the War. The case for this is for the most part two books. There is nothing more then some statements from back in the day criticizing the media for being to negative etc there are no sources arguing this view. While there is a rebuttal to the view that the media served as a watchdog there is no sources actually arguing this view as far as I can see. The actual history seems well researched although the section names need to be looked at, more neutral language and so on. Edkollin (talk) 23:47, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

• Criticism. Very good. I like it. So write the article yourself. Biased toward the view? The U.S. Army, two of whose works on the media and the war are extensively quoted, are biased toward the anti-war view? My God, the times they really are a changin'. If you want to insert sources arguing otherwise, do so. This is wiki. RM Gillespie (talk) 13:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Suggest to add media coverage until 1975 and consequences of the media coverage on US forces media policy in later conflicts

86.148.171.101 (talk) 00:23, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Western Correspondents in NORTH Vietnam

This article fails to mention that there was at least one Western news agency in North Vietnam during The Vietnam War, namely The French Press Agency (Agence France-Presse).

Indeed, I'm old enough to remember listening to the radio broadcasts of my local Pacifica radio station in New York City, WBAI; their regular evening news was hosted and largely prepared by Paul Fischer; it was called "The War Summary" and he would freely credit the French Press Agency at the conclusion of each broadcast; none of this is in either the article on The French Press Agency here in Wikipedia nor in any article on WBAI nor Pacifica so the claim that no Western news agency had any correspondents in North Vietnam during this conflict is essentially not correct.

I'm not so sure but I seem to recall that WBAI even had a wire from the French Press Agency right in the station, much as more commercial outlets would have one from AP or UPI.

Satchmo Sings (talk) 23:40, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

• My God people, if you have relevent material to add, then add. Quit bitchin and get to writin! I gave up on this article several years ago and come back to find nothing changed, but a lot of bitchin and moanin. Get to work! RM Gillespie (talk) 13:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV

I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:

This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:

1. There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
2. It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
3. In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:00, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Tet Offensive: 1968 Photo

Hi, has anyone else noticed that in the photo in Tet Offensive paragraph that the picture of someone being shot is taped to the tv?Rjbraasch (talk) 23:03, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I have, and the caption is not just misleading, it's false. Either the photo should be removed or the caption should be changed to say that the two people are posing for a photo to appear to be watching TV news. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.76.2.237 (talk) 01:05, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Tet Offsensive: 1968

The opening line of this section states that by 1968, America had 'officially' been at war with Vietnam for four years. I'm just wondering where the information for that comes from, since no official declaration of war was ever made with Vietnam. Is there a way this could be phrased that communicates this better? SBrennen (talk) 18:08, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Even if we accept a looser definition of "officially" than a declaration of war (for example, it would be reasonable to say that the US was officially at war against Iraq as of the night of January 16-17, 1991), there was no particular date at which the US went officially to war in Vietnam.

The US began participating in combat in Vietnam on a small but significant scale about January of 1962. The scale was small enough that the government could pretend this was not happening and that the Americans were just advisers.

The US began participating in combat on a much larger scale, openly and publicly announced, and suffering substantial casualties, in 1965, but there was no particular month when the US crossed a clear line from not being at war to being at war. More than fifty Americans were killed by hostile action in June 1965, and more than a hundred in September. Ed Moise (talk) 17:54, 26 October 2024 (UTC)