War, Conflict and Disaster in Broadcast News

June 8, 1972Phan Thị Kim Phúc

• Brought home the horrors of the Vietnam war

Phuc’s photo

Controversy

• In the United States people don’t want to see death.• We’re much more squeamish than other parts of the world

PHOTOS ARE POWERFUL

• USED FOR EMOTION

o Jfk

o World Trade Center

• Oklahoma City

USED TO RALLY THE NATION

Gave Americans the resolve to enter World War II

Haiti, 2010

Some American newspapers would not show these photos

Jumping from the World Trade Center

One of many people who jumped from the Twin Towers rather than await their fate.

Ethel Freeman, 91

Freeman died at the New Orleans Convention Center, September 1, 2005

WAREveryone wants to wage it, but no one wants to see its consequences. - politifakes

We talked last week about how war has been sanitized

• Many people like all the military toys

• We like to glorify our troops• As we should

But it’s easy to glorify war from 7,000 miles away or 30-thousand feet

• “Bird Dog, I killed a man today. He wasn't even a soldier; he just kept coming. I couldn't stop him. I didn't want to do it. I never had to do anything like that before in my life. “

Nintendo War

• U.S. Air Force Video

• Marines

o Warning - Graphic Language

The Bush Administration stopped the practice of allowing photographs of coffins returning from Iraq.

Bosnia, 1995

1995 Srebrenica massacre