“Wait a minute,” Bobby began to chuckle. In the corner of his eye he caught Tilden and Alban gesturing positively to each other. “Sherrick, c’mere. What’s going on?”
In full voice Sherrick stated, “This court has charged the media with collusion, conspiracy, and malicious skewing of information. You have further claimed that the effects of these alleged activities were the fall of Viet Nam and the polarization of American society. This is ridiculous! The defendants were not principals in this war, and could not have had the effects they are charged with. They were not in charge of policy. They directed no troop movements. They produced no weapons or ammunition. There are no provisions in law under which these charges, even if substantiated, could be considered crimes. The media, indeed, were not party to—”
“Gary!” Wapinski was baffled. He had not expected Sherrick to seriously pursue the request for dismissal. “You yourself proposed the charges.”
“That was in a different role,” Sherrick declared.
“Your Honor.” Tony Pisano came to the bench. “I’d like to say something.”
“The prosecution has already delivered its opening arguments,” Sherrick said.
“I’ll allow it,” Wapinski countered. “Without charging it to anybody’s time.”
“Your Honor,” Tony said, “the prosecution will show that the media were very much party to the war, to every stage of the war, to the final outcome and to the aftermath.”
“Yeah, right!” Sherrick snapped. “One cannot be a party to—”
Wapinski overrode both. “Step back,” he ordered. He shook his hammer at the two counsels. “Cut out the b.s. The charges will not be dropped. The trial will continue. The defense is directed to offer its opening arguments. Now, Gary, is this you, Carl, or Frank?”
Denahee stood. Despite Sherrick’s unsettling maneuver the barn quieted. “There was no malice,” Frank began. “No collusion, no conspiracy, no damage. The defendants did their jobs in a manner consistent with the highest journalistic standards the human race has ever known. That this nation experienced, and is experiencing, polarization over the war is due not to freedom of the press, nor to freedom of speech, but to the nature of that particular war, the manner in which it was conducted by five American administrations, and by the deceitfulness of U.S. government, military, and industrial officials.
“The prosecution will tell you that our clients mindlessly repeated erroneous facts and theories, or maliciously exposed information damaging to the government and the military. But the prosecution must prove that the facts and theories presented by the media were purposefully slanted to one ideological perspective; that broadcasts maintained a general thematic pattern so as to dupe the American people; and that the ‘networks,’ ‘Hollywood,’ the press and academia colluded with the intent to conspire. This they will not be able to do.
“It is the position of the defense that no collusion, no willful misrepresentations, no conspiracy, and no malicious antidemocratic skewing exists now or ever existed. As to incompetence, I would remind the court that errors in reportage are not the equivalent of deaths by friendly fire.
“Indeed,” Denahee continued, “the defense will demonstrate not only the innocence of the media but will establish, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this unjust ‘cause’ for which fifty-eight thousand Americans were sacrificed was and is the stimulus for today’s polarization and lack of will. We will show that despite the courage of many individuals, despite the camaraderie, despite the self-sacrifice to something larger than the self, the war was stupid, evil and immoral; that it was a criminal enterprise created by myopic politicians and greedy military industrialists; that it was unwinnable and at the same time a killing machine; that the battlefields had no immediate tactical or long-term strategic importance to the peace and freedom of this nation; and finally that the ‘story’ the prosecution so adamantly wishes to defend is the exclusionary story of wealthy, white European males, not the inclusionary story of all of America’s people.”
Bobby held up his hand. “Thanks Frank,” he said. “Tony, you’re up.” Bobby reset his watch.
“Your Honor, we have chosen to present the data on the reach of the media and the importance of story in our opening arguments instead of through expert witness testimony because we believe this is crucial for the understanding of ‘How Things Happened.’ Supporting documents have been submitted for the court’s records.”
“Proceed.” Bobby nodded.
“To deny that the media,” Tony began, “is the teacher, the conveyor of information and story, and the shaper of opinions and the national myth would be to exonerate the media from any responsibility for the tragedies that have struck us at home and others abroad. Yet is it possible for this branch of our society to have had such impact? The prosecution has no intention of allowing this jury to remain in a state of ignorance with regard to the reach of the media, especially television. Nor will we allow the accused to sidestep wrongdoing.
“These are network figures,” Tony said. “They come from an article in an advertising trade magazine on the concerns of television network executives. ‘TV viewing hours are declining,’ the report states, ‘and this is costing the networks millions of dollars.’ Listen to these figures. ‘In 1973 the average American household watched six hours and fifteen minutes of TV each and every day. In 1974 that figure fell by one minute. In ’75 it fell by an additional nine minutes.’ This was a television disaster. This was the loss of at least fifty-three million viewer-hours.
“From another report, ‘one hundred million Americans are mesmerized by TV every evening. They are soothed into states of heightened suggestibility.’ Another report. ‘TV is habit forming and addictive. Viewer self-esteem and enjoyment decrease as viewing time increases. Many people wish to cut back or quit but can’t. They become as dependent upon viewing as any substance abuser becomes dependent upon his drug. Often an abuser expects to take one or two hits, one or two nips, one or two shows, but is seduced into more ... into so many hours of watching that family and personal responsibilities are shunted. Withdrawal produces stress, tension and at times depression.’”
Tony shook his head sadly. “Another report,” he said. “‘American children, before they enter first grade, view an average of 4000 hours of TV. Children who watch more,’ this study suggests, ‘do not become more sophisticated but lose or never develop the verbal proficiency and emotional security essential to learning.’ Moreover, the study claims, ‘these children also lack normal moral awareness. They come to view the world as a hostile and scary place.’”
Tony slapped his hands together. “Back to adults. Forty-nine point eight percent of all adult Americans obtain one hundred percent of their news from TV. During the Viet Nam War years, the Big Three networks pulled better than ninety-five percent of all prime-time viewers. To whom, I ask you, did we and are we giving our minds?”
Tony consulted his notes. “This,” he said, “from a network insider’s memo. ‘News stories without dramatic footage are not lead stories. Find something else.’ Implied here is that importance is a secondary criterion to the network executives who control the information to which most Americans are exposed, and upon which most Americans rely. Drama, controversy, theatrics and visual histrionics are paramount.
“And yet television news is not simply the news. It is not merely the communication of specific stories and data. The news is our national and cultural identity. Just as an individual’s speech reflects who he or she is, his deepest thoughts, or perhaps no thought at all, so too do media projections, as our cultural speech, reflect who and what we are. TV is our past and present behaviors, our current self-image, our hopes, aspirations and optimism, or our debasement, fears and pessimism.
“The news is more than what is reported, much more than a recapping of events. Television defines us. Via its calculated projections it directs our focus, it tells us what to think about, and how to think. It tells us what we like and dislike; what to
eat; what to wear; what to buy; what’s cool, what’s not. This cheap, ubiquitous medium tells us who we are, who we should be. It defines our sexual roles; it develops stereotypes of men and women, of vets and races. It tells us what is funny, what is fun, what is square. It defines what is politically correct and politically incorrect, what is socially acceptable. And it has defined our perceptions of the Viet Nam War.
“Above all else television is narrow, manipulative, not an information distribution system but a slick marketing tool designed to elevate material consumption to ultimate levels, a fabric of lies woven for private gain—a soulless, self-serving medium. We are in a battle for our national myth, a battle for history. A—”
“Whoa!” Bobby broke in. “Time’s up, Tony. Way over.” Bobby reset his watch.
Immediately Carl Mariano was up. “Television is not a monolith.” He lambasted the prosecution even before he emerged from behind the defense table. “None of the media, including television, speak with one voice.”
“They did about Nam,” George Kamp shouted from the audience.
“Like hell ...” Denahee shot back.
“Order.” Wapinski rapped the table.
Mariano darted to the sheet metal break. “I request this exchange not be deducted from my time.”
“Agreed. Go on.”
“The media do not speak with one voice,” Mariano repeated. “Nor do they reflect, in any aspect, a single opinion, perspective or theme. Television may articulate public concerns, but it does not, as the prosecution suggests, create single-minded public sentiment. Nor could it!
“Allow me to explain. What is the sum of plus one and minus one? What is the condition of a liquid mixing equal parts of equal strength acid and alkali? What is the net result of news stories from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal? Please! Do not tell me nothing! Zero is not nothing, but is a neutral zone between plus and minus. Mixed acid and alkali do not create nothing but reach a balanced midpoint. And net results of the Times and the Journal are not canceled out but are deeper- and broader-based knowledge. Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report often present identical topics but seldom present identical facts, identical opinions, or identical conclusions. The result is an ever-widening definition of us. Our range and scope as individuals and as a culture become more inclusive. We are set free by the freedom to choose from various news and entertainment sources. If the media define us, they define us in the broadest possible terms. If they tell us what to think about, and how to think, the menu they offer is so comprehensive one must see this not as limiting propaganda but as general education. Narrow? Manipulative? Lies? Come on, Tony. The media present such a vast potpourri of opinions and facts no one could possibly peruse, much less assimilate, all the data.
“TV stopped the war in Viet Nam and saved many of us here from death. It stopped the war not by being ‘antiwar’ but by exposing the harsh realities of that war. For nearly six months my own unit marched through dried-out rice paddies. We spread out, advanced on line in broad daylight. Our job was simple. We were flypaper. How many flies could we attract. The idea was to get them to fire at us so the technocrats could go to work, bring in the gunships, fast movers and arty. We could have handled the opposition toe-to-toe but that wasn’t our mission. I remember for six months thinking, ‘What bush can I get to? Where’s the closest dike for when they open up? Where’s there a hole?’ But you had to stand up and walk. Sweeps! We lost a lot of men. Just wasted.
“A TV crew captured on film men in my unit being killed by snipers; it was TV that exposed this absurdity; it was TV that brought it into living rooms in suburban America.
“Viet Nam was a bad war. The defense will show that every American administration reached this conclusion: Eisenhower; Bobby Kennedy after his brother was killed; Robert McNamara; Lyndon Johnson declined to run because he knew; Nixon won election because he had a ‘secret plan’ to end the war. Viet Nam was the single dumbest endeavor America has ever undertaken. Today’s heroes are the people who opposed the war, who brought about its conclusion. The media, instead of being tried for collusion, conspiracy and incompetence, should be applauded for their courage, convictions, and accomplishments.”
“Good job, Carl,” Bobby said. “Great job. We’ll hear the last prosecutor, then take a ten-minute break. Don.”
Don Wagner held a thick packet of file cards. “I’m, ah ... I’m going to read some of mine, okay?”
“Fine.”
“I can’t do it like ... I can’t keep it all in my head.”
“That’s fine, Don,” Bobby said.
Wagner fidgeted. “But first I gotta say—the war didn’t stop! It’s still going on. Carl’s presumption that the media stopped the war is one of the absurd myths the media has promulgated and continues to reinforce. Ah ... I can’t get into that ... But geez guys, fer godsake, ask Hieu. The war didn’t stop in ’75. Our witnesses will prove that.”
Wagner stood so one leg was lightly touching the recorder’s table. Though he’d rehearsed his presentation, he spoke nervously before the nearly one hundred people in the barn. “There was a time in America,” Don read, “when we believed we were an altruistic people, a time when we believed we could help the oppressed, the needy, the cowering masses. There was a time when we vowed to go anywhere, to bear any burden, in the name of freedom. Now we exist in a time in America where we believe in looking out for number one, in the me generation, in getting our piece of the pie no matter whom we screw-over or abandon. Once duty was considered a virtue. Now it is equated with depravity. Our cultural story has changed. The ancient Greeks used to say, Ethos anthropou daimon. A person’s story is his fate. And a nation’s myth, the story it tells itself of itself, is a nation’s fate. Our story is our self-image. Our self-image controls our behavior. We act in accordance with our beliefs and image; in a manner consistent with our story.
“Despite Carl’s assurance that freedom of the press and of speech have given us a full menu, we will see that the media, time and time and time again, have oversimplified and misconstrued that story—specific stories about specific problems, from Viet Nam to racism, from the gender gap to energy production—and that this oversimplification has led to atmospheres of public sentiment in which specific solutions have been inadequate or inappropriate. It is not just Viet Nam, but it is Viet Nam again and again. The media, particularly the TV networks, have acted like vain, conceited peacocks always assessing their own image, operating in dread fear of self-embarrassment, sanctimoniously presenting themselves with false humility, with artificial neutrality, in serious and solemn tones as if the media are the new church, as if they are defenders of the victimized, as if they alone define good, represent good, and challenge evil.
“So overtly possessed of itself is TV that it dare not air anything that is not politically and socially correct, as the media itself defines and acquiesces to that ‘correctness.’ This is self-imposed censorship motivated by Nielsen ratings, by responsibility to shareholders, by greed. This creates, for the purveyors of information, dilemmas in which they are unable to present anything other than the inane reduced to the absurd. As to Viet Nam, the result was not a comprehensive picture but a lack of understanding; not an analytical approach but a nonhistoric, noninterpretive dramatic projection. Cultural forces, with the exceptions of simplistic nationalism and anticolonialism, were ignored. Viet Nam changed not just quantitatively but qualitatively from phase to phase, yet the media fixated on the theme of a quagmire of seemingly meaningless firefights. Perhaps this was good theater, but it was poor education.
“The story told, the story that is an inaccurate portrayal of us, is the source of personal and national disempowerment. Story is important. Story is effected by selective observations, selective remembrance, selective editing and selective retelling. What affects selection? Personal histories? Personal agendas? Political gains? For the media, the great storytellers, I go back to Nielsen ratings, market shares, greed.
“We
are the story of ourselves but our story has been usurped by a medium without integrity. I would like to close with a quote from Alexander Hamilton.
It is an unquestionable truth that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity; but it is equally unquestionable that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise.
“That was 1788. During Viet Nam, public misinformation incited passionate antigovernment movements. Incompetence in reportage led to administrations being overwhelmed and finally forced into an unnecessary, ill-advised, and—unfortunately for millions of Southeast Asian human beings—genocide-producing forfeitures of the allied military victories of 1968 and 1972. This lengthened, not shortened, the war. As someone said, ‘They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.’”
After the recess Gary Sherrick delivered the defense’s final opening argument. His segment was disappointing. He reiterated numerous points covered by Denahee and Mariano, refuted little of Wagner’s attack. Sherrick seemed antsy, anxious to delve into the meat of the exercise, the testimony of the expert witnesses. Tony and the prosecutors sensed he had something up his sleeve.
Session Two—15 October 1981—The air was charged. All week vets from each side concurred in private, speculated what their opponents would do. The prosecution’s plan was to demonstrate that various beliefs or myths about American involvement in Viet Nam were widely held by the American public; that those beliefs—the elements of the story of American involvement—were established by biased information promulgation; that the stories, by commission, omission or reductionism, were skewed or untrue; and finally that these mistaken beliefs had serious social, political and martial consequences. Renneau tagged the prosecution’s witnesses Myth Busters.
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