Daniel Ellsberg may I first of say WOW you are the bravest human being I’ve ever watched a documentary about. Personally, not that I would ever possess classified “top secret” government documents about any war, but I don’t know if I would risk giving up my life, my friends, family and everything I know to go to prison in order to educate the public on what really happened. I mean, of course I like to think I would, but after watching the hassle Ellsberg had to go through, as well as seeing how he lost his friends and all he had to give up, wow I don’t know if I could hack it. But thank goodness there are a few people in this world that are willing to give everything up for what they believe in.
The media absolutely had every right to publish the Pentagon Papers that were “stolen” by Ellsberg. The public needed to know what truly was happening in Vietnam and that the government was straight up lying to them. That the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers story in my opinion is journalism at its finest. Today journalists feel such a great responsibility to the government, and don’t want to jeopardize their jobs that they don’t publish half the stories they should. But this story needed to go public, regardless of the consequences the journalists might face.
It really makes me sick however that the public took the information, understood it, and still did nothing about it. They re-elected Nixon, and the war continued for another FOUR years. That is disgusting. What could possibly lead the public to re-elect a leader that outright lied to the entire country about how the war in Vietnam was going? Telling the public that everything was awesome when really nothing was being accomplished, is that really the President you would want in power? I certainly wouldn’t.
In relation to Ellsberg, there is the current story of Bradley Manning’s alleged leaking of secret war information to WikiLeaks. It is really unfortunate for Manning that since he is being court-marshaled, he is being held in military prison (Ellsberg was charged as a citizen even though he was a soldier at one point). The information that Manning leaked is also of vital importance for the public to be made aware of. The inexcusable war crimes being perpetrated by our own armies, as well as the immense corruption going on/that went on in Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan is important for the public to know. How else can we make informed decisions on what we think and believe and want to happen in the future? If our worldview is being distorted by lies and cover-ups we will continue to support and perpetuate these ridiculous wars under false pretences and think we’re doing the right thing!
Journalists have a lot of power; this is definitely shown in the case of the media outlets that ran the story on the Pentagon Papers. But journalists today need to re-evaluate who they are loyal to truly, the government or the public. Who are they really writing for, what is their true purpose of writing? To reinforce the publics narrow view of the world? Or to expose and inform the public on things that they would otherwise be unaware of. As a journalist, you can’t make everyone care about what you have to say, you can’t effect how people will deal with things but it is definitely a journalist’s responsibility to make sure the public knows the facts. After that, they are on their own to process the information how they see fit. Journalists are responsible primarily to the public’s right to know, not to protect the government.
I really agree with what you said about the public and how they reacted after hearing about how much nixon lied to them. Like how they just went on with daily lives, not seeming to be affected by what they had read what so ever. I just kind of can't believe nothing big happened after that, no huge riots, protests or anything. It's a little unbelieveable.
ReplyDeleteIt really is amazing that Nixon was reelected after the public was made aware of the lies that occurred. You have to wonder whether the public believed it, or how many of them actually cared about it. Nixon didn't win by a small amount. He won in 49 states. Did all of America give in to Nixon's lies? Did they believe him? That's scary.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read the comments made on this blog and the dislike of the fact that Nixon was re-elected I can't help but relate it to wikileaks and the public's reaction to that. I feel that for whatever reason wikileaks has begun to be less and less in the headlines and it seems to me that the public is already beginning to forget. I think that we can learn from the public's decision to re-elect Nixon as to not make their same mistake. If we don't like what they did then what are we going to do not to make a difference?
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