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| | Some journalists have admitted that their reporting was decidedly biased, and had profound effects on history. West German correspondent Uwe Siemon-Netto confessed, "Having covered the Viet Nam war over a period of five years for West German publications, I am now haunted by the role we journalists have played over there." In relation to not reporting the true nature of the Hanoi regime and its actions resulting from the American withdrawal, he asked, | | Some journalists have admitted that their reporting was decidedly biased, and had profound effects on history. West German correspondent Uwe Siemon-Netto confessed, "Having covered the Viet Nam war over a period of five years for West German publications, I am now haunted by the role we journalists have played over there." In relation to not reporting the true nature of the Hanoi regime and its actions resulting from the American withdrawal, he asked, |
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| − | What prompted us to make our readers believe that the Communists, once in power in all of Viet Nam, would behave benignly? What made us, first and foremost Anthony Lewis, belittle warnings by U.S. officials that a Communist victory would result in a massacre?... Are we journalists not in part responsible for the death of the tens of thousands who drowned? And are we not in part responsible for the hostile reception accorded to those who survive?...However, the media have been rather coy; they have not declared that they played a key role in the conflict. They have not proudly trumpeted Hanoi's repeated expressions of gratitude to the mass media of the non-Communist world, although Hanoi has indeed affirmed that it could not have won "without the Western press."<ref name="ReferenceA">Uwe Siemon-Netto in the International Herald Tribune, reprinted in Encounter, October 1979</ref> | + | What prompted us to make our readers believe that the Communists, once in power in all of Viet Nam, would behave benignly? What made us, first and foremost Anthony Lewis, belittle warnings by U.S. officials that a Communist victory would result in a massacre?... Are we journalists not in part responsible for the death of the tens of thousands who drowned? And are we not in part responsible for the hostile reception accorded to those who survive?...However, the media have been rather coy; they have not declared that they played a key role in the conflict. They have not proudly trumpeted Hanoi's repeated expressions of gratitude to the mass media of the non-Communist world, although Hanoi has indeed affirmed that it could not have won "without the Western press."<ref name="ReferenceA">Uwe Siemon-Netto in the International Herald Tribune, reprinted in Encounter, October 1979</ref> Ironically, it was also because of the bias from the Western press, in particular ''[[The New York Times]]'', that caused the NVA to undergo their [[Tet Offensive]] with overconfidence that they would cause the entire South Vietnamese to embrace Communism and go against Capitalism and Saigon.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20111017152729/http://bigpeace.com/smandel/2010/09/29/the-truth-about-vietnam-correcting-the-record-on-tet/</ref> |
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| | ''CBS Evening News with [[Walter Cronkite]]'' regularly carried news reports from its [[Moscow]] Bureau Chief, [[Bernard Redmont]]. When peace negotiations commenced with North Vietnam in Paris, Redmont became ''CBS News'' [[Paris]] Bureau Chief. What Redmont never reported during the ten year conflict was that he had been a [[KGB]] operative since the 1930s, and member of the notorious [[Silvermaster group]].<ref name="KGB file 43173 vol. 2 v pp. 46-55">[http://hnn.us/articles/11581.html KGB file 43173 vol. 2 (v) pp. 46-55], Alexander Vassiliev, Notes on A. Gorsky’s Report to Savchenko S.R., 23 December 1949. Original document from KGB Archives [http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page46.html].</ref> Redmont was the only journalist to whom his fellow [[Comintern]] party member, and North Vietnamese chief negotiator, Mai Van Bo, granted an interview to bring the Communist point of view into American living rooms in what has been called "the living room war." | | ''CBS Evening News with [[Walter Cronkite]]'' regularly carried news reports from its [[Moscow]] Bureau Chief, [[Bernard Redmont]]. When peace negotiations commenced with North Vietnam in Paris, Redmont became ''CBS News'' [[Paris]] Bureau Chief. What Redmont never reported during the ten year conflict was that he had been a [[KGB]] operative since the 1930s, and member of the notorious [[Silvermaster group]].<ref name="KGB file 43173 vol. 2 v pp. 46-55">[http://hnn.us/articles/11581.html KGB file 43173 vol. 2 (v) pp. 46-55], Alexander Vassiliev, Notes on A. Gorsky’s Report to Savchenko S.R., 23 December 1949. Original document from KGB Archives [http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page46.html].</ref> Redmont was the only journalist to whom his fellow [[Comintern]] party member, and North Vietnamese chief negotiator, Mai Van Bo, granted an interview to bring the Communist point of view into American living rooms in what has been called "the living room war." |