Leal Pg.

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Matthew Leal

Professor: Valerie Fong

English 1S.01

11 Nov.2017

Media During War Times

The media during times of war can be characteristically biased depending on which country

that media is from. They could either be for or against the war or they report false statements

during times of war. The media cannot be totally trusted during times of war because they will be

biased if the country theyre in is participating in the war but why is that. Why do countries

portray war something that is terrible and takes people's lives and ruins entire countries where

the war took place. Why do they portray it as being positive at times? Well by the end of this

essay Ill give you a reason for why the media may do this. Im not saying that the media is

always portraying war positively. Im just trying to explain why they do it so often.
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The reason why media portrays war in such a positive light sometimes is because they are often

from the country that is actively participating in the war and the government is feeding them bits

of information that they only want the public to know. Not everything is revealed to the people

for they fear people losing support for the war and protesting being at war. Just like how people

starting protesting vietnam, because there was no real reason the government gave for going

there in the first place sure they said it was to stop the spread of communism but. The fact that it

was theyre only reason wasnt exactly going to win them over. So they decided to elect the help

the press to start saying good things about the war from the very beginning so that there was less

of chance of people not supporting the war because if you have the support of the people for the

war then they wont really question where all their tax money is going and wont get angry about

it all being spent to fight a war. So how did the media try to help gain the peoples support for

the war? They talked about victories in battle; they showed the kill count of the enemies that

were defeated. They even exaggerated the amount of people the U.S was killing to try and get

the point across that they were winning the war by body count but what they didnt show was the

territory that the enemy was holding and it wasnt shrinking so its not like anyone was

actually getting anything done during this war and eventually as the media started to tell

repetitive stories people started to catch on that something wasnt quite right so the people

started to protest the war then the press started to shift their view on the war. They of course

wanted to be the top story and wanted to get the most people to buy their newspaper, or toon in

to their, evening broadcast as people started protesting the war so did the media. They wanted to
be the part of the popular opinion and be viewed by the people negatively, like the government

was being viewed as more and more people started to protest the war so did the media and the

media's coverage of protests to. The views on the war were so bad veterans would be spit on

while on airplanes, and other forms of transportation for fighting in the war when most likely

they were forced into going the media during this war started out positive but they helped make

the war so negative that people started to hate the people that were sent there by force. One of

my favorite books on the Vietnam war The Things They Carried talks about the media and the

war and shows what it was like on the frontlines from a real soldier fighting in the war I

survived, but its not a happy ending. That quote shows even if you survived the war it not

mean everything was going to be okay. The war was unpopular and, the media helped make it

that way. Who knows how long the fighting wouldve gone on if the war was never protested

like it was. The U.S pulled out of Vietnam because it was so unpopular and they were losing. If

they had the support of the people who knows how the U.S wouldve been at war. The media

helped pull the U.S out of the war by putting it in a negative light and it was probably for the

best.

Another case in the media taking a huge role in war times was in Germany before and during

World War 2 the media in Germany played such a huge role in how the people viewed the war in

such a positive way that they didnt see themselves as the bad guys. The media was controlled by

the government and that caused propaganda to be spread around the country. Like when Hitler

rose to power his Nazi party took control of the government then took control of the media and

started spreading word that the Jews were responsible for all of Germany's problems that theyre
the reason that Germany lost World War 1 and that they needed to take back what was rightfully

theirs and that sparked a negative image of Jewish people in Germany and made them become

the outcasts of the country and eventually the targets and scapegoats. The media in Germany was

completely controlled by the government which isnt a surprise because it was a dictatorship but

that spread of propaganda throughout the war saw the German people brainwashed into thinking

that everything that was happening in the war was going their way. For example when Germany

attempted to invade Russia the reports in Germany were that things were going well for them and

they were going to take over Russia very shortly and take care of one of the biggest powers. This

was in fact true at the start of the invasion of Russia but as the Russian winter set in the Germans

started to lose men and supplies but the reports in Germany were still very positive saying that

their efforts in the war were going exactly as planned. That made the people of Germany believe

that everything was working out for the best even though outside of the borders of Germany the

stories were quite different. The Germans were losing battles and losing more and more territory

as the war went on eventually coming to Germany's front doors which made the German people

realize that they were being lied to by the media. If the media had not been taken control of by

the government in Germany things probably wouldve ended differently. Maybe World War 2

wouldn't of happened and all the terrible things that happened during the war wouldve been

prevented. If the media wasnt taken over it couldve changed the course of our planet's history

that's how powerful the media can be. They can change how people feel and act how, they can

brainwash you without you even knowing it. In the U.S everyone was against joining in the

fighting they didn't want to be apart of another long and bloody war. Until the attacks on Pearl

Harbor then when the people wanted to get back for what happened at Pearl Harbor. The media
also jumped in and started displaying propaganda for the war effort to have the people get

involved in the war and the media's ability to get people involved during war time is so crucial

that it can really determine if a war is won or not if the people and media are supporting the war

the higher the chance for success is because if you dont have the media behind you then you

dont have the people behind you and its hard to fight a war if you dont have the support of the

people.

The way the world works is we receive information either through experiencing it ourselves or

through the media many of us will hopefully never know whats its like to fight in a war that's

why the media is so crucial during war time it can easily shift our viewpoints because many of us

will never experience our cities being bombed or soldiers marching down our streets with tanks

and fully automatic rifles the media helps to try and understand what's going on with the world

we probably wont truly know what happens in war but we can still get a sense of what's going

on through the media. Thats why the media is so important during times of war to help us

understand to make us think about what's going on to make us see how horrible it can be it

doesnt matter what war it is or where in the world its happening the media plays a huge

influence on these wars because without it we probably wouldnt know about half the things

happening an ocean away without the media we probably wouldnt have heard about what's

happening in Syria or what isis is doing in the Middle East if the media doesnt cover it how will

we know about it unless we were there. Take Rwanda for example there was little to no media

coverage and because of that the people in that country suffered greatly they got no help and had

to fend for themselves and that left the country in ruin if the media had covered it things couldve
turned out differently. If the media wasnt around things could turn out a lot differently the world

as we know it could be completely different if the it helps understand what's going on in the wars

were apart of and the wars happening across the globe if it wasnt for them we probably would

never know about half the things going on in the world even though we dont want them to be

biased about wars we also secretly do people dont want to know that a wars getting bad or if

theyre losing it no one likes to lose and I feel that's why the media has some bias when it comes

to reporting wars they dont want to tell the whole truth because the truth is ugly and no one

wants to know that innocents are being killed by our bombs or that people are losing their homes

and lives because of two nations differences they only want to hear the good never the bad. If

people want to have the media stop being biased during the war then there is one simple answer

world peace if wars didnt happen then there would be no media biased no destruction of cities

not nations fighting with each other because of their differences if we all came together as human

beings then it wouldnt have to be like this because.

military all for the reason of destroying each other if the world wasnt like this we could

accomplish so many things we could land on mars discover cures to all diseases have people live

longer healthier lives but no all we want to do is destroy each other we used to reach for the stars

as a species we used to try and better ourselves but now we rather reach for our best weapon and

destroy each other instead of trying to make things better for us we could improve our education

help get rid of world hunger end poverty but no we continue to destroy each other in meaningless

conflicts and because of that we will never reach our fool potential as a species all because of
war we keep fighting in war because we think something will change The definition of insanity

is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yet we still keep

repeating the same thing we constantly go to war and it never changes but we expect a different

result because war war never changes. War war never changes since the dawn of humankind,

when our ancestors first discovered the killing power of rock and bone, blood has been spilt in

the name of everything: from God to justice to simple, chaotic rage. This quote is sadly true no

matter how much the world changes no matter how advanced we become as a society war will

never change people will die people will lose loved ones their homes will be destroyed and for

what war only brings pain and suffering nothing will ever change that as we move forward as a

species we look to new ways to kill each other instead of looking into ways in how to heal each

other have better lives, live peacefully with each other but no it is constant bloodshed all for the

sake of what expanding fictional borders? In the name of a God? For money? All these things

that we go to wars for all dont matter in the end no one is immortal we all die we all end up in

the same place yes you can argue that theres a heaven or hell but how can we know that for sure

if we truly knew that for a fact then why dont people start accepting each other instead of

constantly being terrible with one another we think not of the consequences of war but the

benefits for example the U.S isnt exactly trying to be the best of friends with North Korea and if

it comes to war people are going to say oh well were freeing them from their dictatorship were

helping them out were doing this for them. Yeah that may be true that we might end up helping

them from the bad situation but what's that going to cost how many innocents our going to have

to die how many soldiers are going to have to die because two men want to see whos the biggest

and the baddest out of the two of them but they wont go themselves and fight one another
theyll send the poor and the young to go fight their battle a quote that perfectly explains war in

my opinion is War is where the young and stupid get tricked by the old and bitter into killing

each other. The world is such a constant race for power by the rich old and bitter who can have

the most power who can have the most people under their control who get the most money who

can have the best weapons etc if people really want to change how the world works we need to

stop looking at our differences and move past them if there were no borders, religions how

different would the world be instead of being divided into over 100 different countries we all be

united as one but no we continue to separate ourselves from each other we continue to divide

from one another and that will never help us achieve greatness it will only hinder our progress to

making our whole species great it doesnt matter if the media gets involved in a war or not the

overall outcome is the same people die and nothing but pain and suffering come from it countries

spend trillions of dollars on the

 Works Cited

O'Brien,Tim. The Things They Carried,1990

Fallout 3. Bethesda Softworks, 28 October 2008,

https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/store/p/Fallout-3/C29HQ887KH4B

GTA IV. Rockstar Games, 29 April

2008,https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/gta-iv/brq2sczctxf2
 Albert Einstein "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting

different results."