Random Thought

Media bias.

They've certainly picked a side.

I think many people don't mind because it's their side.

I've heard more and more from people who I would never have thought were interested in politics ask, "When did the media stop reporting the events and start making everything an editorial?"

I can't really answer that. I noticed they were doing that somewhere in the Branch Davidian stand off. Wikipedia says that was 1993. That's where I noticed the media calling an M2A1 Bradley and an M728 CEV tanks. The Bradley is an infantry combat vehicle and the M728 is a combat engineering vehicle. The M728 is based on an M60A1 tank, but I know from watching them during the Gulf War that they have people on staff who know the difference between the vehicles used and tanks. Even using the term "armored vehicle" instead of tank would have been accurate. But they chose tank. It was inaccurate. It had to be deliberate. Why?

I've never found an answer to, "why?" that didn't scare me.

I also have to ask, "How come every time something that I know something about is presented, the media gets key things wrong?"

It's made it so I cannot trust them. They have a side and are advancing that side's agenda.

It must be older than 1993 though. Remember when Walter Cronkite declared the war in Vietnam unwinnable right after the Tet Offensive? We won that battle. We'd actually won the war. Congress (Democrat majority) voted to cut funding and end air-support for the South Vietnamese; snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The North Vietnamese were still receiving material support from both USSR and China. Most people don't know that. The evacuation of Siagon took place almost two years after the last US combat troops had left. South Vietnamese troops, with US funding and supplies along with US air support had successfully repelled an invasion from the North the year before. So many people think that the evacuation of Saigon (1975) is DURING the withdrawal of US combat troops (1973). Gee, where do you think that this impression comes from?

Happily, the internet is combating this. A year ago there was little mention of the order of events at the end of Vietnam. Now there's Wikipedia! Prior to the internet it took some digging in military history sections to find this stuff; now it's online.