Nora Ephron Boston Photographs Analysis

After a disastrous battle in 1963, in which the U.S. had lost numerous helicopters and their aboard crew, the press identified strategic blunder and saw “reluctant Vietnamese infantrymen” as the reason for the failed mission. The U.S. government tried to depict the mission as successful, indicating a major point of divide between the government and the media, the media turned to “the word of angry South Vietnamese officials, angry U.S advisors, and hostile American pilots who risked their lives daily without recognition” as their basis of evidence regarding the incident and incidents to come. Another question was left to be raised, where were these televised materials coming from? In accordance with the actual content; much of what was recorded was done by the US Army photographic agency beginning after much controversy caused by the filming of burning the village of Cam Ne by American troops.

Gatekeepers such as publishers and the government play a role in photo manipulation. As Newton (Newton J, 2001, pg. 74) suggests that "those who tend the gates of reportage tend power". These people are the ones who decide what the public ‘needs to know', what is ‘appropriate', what is ‘news' and also what the public needs to ‘see'. Gatekeepers as such must answer questions like: "Will publishing a picture of the body of a drowning victim prevent others from drowning at the same spot, or will it only exploit a tragic situation to sell newspapers?" (Newton J, 2001)

“War does not determine who is right - only who is left.” ~ Bertrand Russell. The famous quote from Bertrand Russell describes the reality of war. War only lets the powerful and the wealthy side win and not the righteous side. On an average 378,000 people die each year at war while 1,450,000 people died in the Vietnam war. The Vietnam war started on 1 November 1955 and lasted until 30 April 1975. The war was fought between the North Vietnamese Communist government and the South Vietnamese Communist rebels known as the Viet Cong against the non-Communist South Vietnamese government and their ally U.S.A. The war destroyed the life of both, the North and South Vietnamese along with the other nations that took part in it. More than 1 million people were killed including civilians and over 3 million injured. Thousand were wives were left widows and hundreds of kids orphans. After consistent protests by the Americans, U.S.A withdrew from the later stages of war. The Vietnam War is a depiction that wars are murky and filthy and should be circumvented as they bring agony and desolation to the people. To show this I used three different mediums which are - Political Cartoon “Name a

In the story “The War Photo No One Would Publish” by Torie Rose DeGhett the photographer (Kenneth Jarecke) takes gruesome photographs of deceased war victims. In 1991, the photo was taken of an Iraqi soldier struggling to pull himself out of a burning vehicle. The fire “incarcerated him to ash and blackened bone” (The War Photo No One Would Publish 1). After taking the photo, Jarecke wanted the image to be published but, due to its unsightly nature no one would publish it. DeGhett believed that this photo should be published he is trying to convince you as to why. The reason this shall not be posted is this soldier is somebody's family member; they do not want to see that image disseminated to the public.

According to Ephron, the backlash surrounding the calls, letters, and the reactions from Seib were from one main factor: “the death of the woman” (320). She argues that if the woman survived, there would be no protest, as the pictures “would have had a completely different impact” (320). But is that still a good enough reason to censor them or not print them at all? Though it remains sad, the photos are news, and a photojournalist’s job would be to snap the photographs in that controversial time. Ephron writes, “For it may be that the real lesson of the Boston photographs is not the danger that editors will be

Many ways that the media was able to get their point across was from the pictures. In Little Rock Girl 1957 by Shelly Tougas, there were many pictures that helped people see with their own eyes what was actually happening. For example, on page

The POW issue created new visions of the war for Americans. As H. Bruce Franklin (1992, 54) wrote in M.I.A, or Mythmaking in America, “The actual photographs and TV footage of massacred villagers, napalmed children, Vietnamese prisoners being tortured and murdered, wounded GIs screaming in agony, and body bags being loaded by the dozen for

Confused by the explosions and machinegun fire coming from both sides, many reporters couldn’t quite tell who had the upper hand. The confusion left many reporters with the assumption that the enemy had taken over the embassy, even though it was an obvious win for American forces. It wasn’t long until a picture of three U.S. soldiers fighting for their life alongside two of their dead brothers was plastered onto the front page of the New York Times. American televisions and newspapers were being filled with the horrible images of the Vietnam War. For many Americans, this was their first glimpse at war, and it was gruesome. Even though the event at the embassy were less catastrophic than the reporters made it seem, the footage of U.S. troops fighting for their own embassy shocked many

People’s opinion on the war was greatly influenced by the media. During the Vietnam War, the horrors that were happening on the battlefield were shown to Americans in their living rooms. There was no censorship meaning Americans back home saw dead bodies, Vietnamese children being shot and villages being burnt, all done by American Soldiers. Watching children, babies and old people being killed caused people to label soldiers as murderers and baby killers. Before Vietnam, soldiers had always been shown in a heroic way. But now, reporters would show only parts of a story, the parts that made soldiers look bad. In the Vietnam War, reporters could literally follow soldiers onto the battle fields and show it on television. Also, most photographers were interested in showing the bad aspects of the war such as the remaining destroyed village of Vietnamese or the suffering of soldiers. The media built stereotypes of soldiers at war as part of anti- war protests so photographers would show the parts that benefited anti-war protests and captured only half the story in his photograph. For

The photographer was John Filo, a student at Kent State university who studied photojournalism. He was also a staffer of a satellite paper for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Filo's purpose behind submitting the photo to the press was to get the word out about probably the most tragic event that was caused because of the intense anti war movement. He wanted to show people the horror that took place at Kent State University on May 4th 1970. The value of this picture is exactly that, it is a picture so it makes it extremely difficult to be subjective. The picture only shows what the guardsmen did to the protesters and not what the protesters did to them. Of course the extent was very different since the guardsmen took lives while the protesters only threw rocks; it only shows the

It was shown daily on the television and in the newspapers. The American government decided not to censor it and let the press have free access. Pictures of Vietnamese children burning alive from American napalm, and the executions of Vietnam people were aired on the nightly news. The news also showed pictures of wounded U.S. soldiers and civilians. This portion of the news became commonly known as "Steak and potatoes with body counts," (Patterson, 80).

In addition, photography does it pivotal role by showing people the realities of life. One relevant example to this is photojournalism. Through photographic presentation, people are informed of the real situations of the stories about the real situations around the globe, may it be good or bad news. It is very easy to understand news or stories with photos attached to them. Therefore, photography is a powerful communication tool that embeds social happenings to the human awakening, with no other form of media can

This site does not try to document the entire history of the Vietnam War but is intended as a picture essay, illustrating some of the incredible conditions under which soldiers from both sides lived, fought, played and ultimately died. Almost all of the images shown were taken by the legendary combat photographer, Tim Page; they are nothing short of

Photographers were expected to be able to take these mind blowing pictures of the war in rapid action, but the truth is there technology back then wasn’t advanced enough to be able to produce these sort of images. The images took only minutes to develop but a huge

Photographs, drawings, cartoons and videos cover significant political matters. Photojournalists such as Lynsey Addario present critical political issues that affect the world today. In her book, It’s What I Do, she presents scenes surrounding the fall of prominent political leaders such as Muammar el-Qaddafi. The pictures on pages 4 and 5 of her book, for instance, show the struggles that the rebels went through in their quest to dethrone Qaddafi. She quotes Robert Capa, who once said, “ ‘ If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough’ ” (Lynsey 7) which shows that photographs are significant in the world of journalism. A video such as “Shouting In The Dark” reveals the heinous acts done by the government of Bahrain towards its own citizens. In the video, we see the brutal force used by the government to silence the peaceful protesters. People were beaten, shot, imprisoned, and killed.