Posted on 10/03/2004 2:15:01 PM PDT by MindBender26
This is not new, but deserves re-telling
A few years ago, Peter Jennings, Mike Walace, Gen Westmoreland (Ret.) and about a dozen others participated in a PBS round table discussion of American media covering the war. Dan Rather was not there.
In this program, Mike Wallace admitted that he would let American soldiers die so he could "get the story." He later described the event to Charlie Gibson.
- - - Start Mike Wallace interview with Charlie Gibson. - - - -
"It was one of those Fred Friendly seminars on television and the hypothetical (question) was that Jennings, Wallace, got the opportunity to go out on patrol with .. a North Vietnamese patrol in the Vietnam war .. with a camera crew and so forth. All of a sudden about 150 yards away, they suddenly realized there's a South Vietnamese patrol coming and with them maybe half a dozen American advisors.
"Now here you are. You're an American, you're a reporter, you've finally gotten the opportunity to cover this story, and suddenly you see South Vietnamese and more important ... Americans there too. The questioner, Charlie Ogletree, a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School .. said to Mr. Jennings, "Peter, what do you do?" Peter thought for a full 10 or 15 seconds and then said, "Well, I'd probably lose my life for doing it, but I would call, I would shout, and I would warn my American countrymen what was about to happen to them, that they were about to walk into an ambush."
"Charlie turns to me. "Mr. Wallace, what about yourself?" Well, I am a contrarian by nature. Mind you, this is live on tape, and it's going to be broadcast and you're thinking oh, come on. I say, "I'm a reporter. I'm a reporter here to cover this story." It didn't occur to me at that moment that I'd undoubtedly get killed the way that Jennings thought he was going to get killed if he were to shout. But when you are covering a story of that nature or any nature, what are you first? You are, in my estimation, a reporter."
"Incidentally, I was sitting beside, on the panel, General William Westmoreland who looked at me like a hair in his soup."
"Jennings listened to me and said, 'You know something? I'm sorry I didn't think it through correctly. Mike was right. We are reporters first."
---- end of Mike Wallace interview - - -
Mike Wallace went on to say " I'm not an American first, I'm a reporter first.
Thanks for the refresher.
a little more reading on turncoats Jennings and Wallace. It's really too bad that Wallace wasn't the one with the memos.
http://www.mediaresearch.org/mediawatch/1989/watch19890401.asp
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/press/vanities/fallows.html
I wonder if Wallace would have tried that dodge on the Nazis during WWII if they had captured him. "Hey, I'm just a reporter not an American Jew" just before they shot him or deported him to a concentration camp.
Is this the same guy on FNS?
Read further. Jennings reconsiders and says he agrees with the others after they state their opinions.
Well, if I was the LT or Sgt in charge of the American patrol, after my men had killed all the viet cong gooks, ol mr american reporter would be summarily executed, cameraman too, and left for the birds and bugs.
They didnt think about that.
Is it not the soldiers job to beat the enemy and would he not be giving aid and comfort to the enemy if he didn't target their reporter?
Most of the soldiers dying in Iraq are being targeted so that their deaths bring maximum propaganda value. Target the reporters and cameramen and the enemy forces wither on the vine. No reporters=no enemy will to fight because they know they can't win a military victory and will only hold out for "victory by demoralization" and we know who their Generals are.
There were no reporters in the Balkans and they admitted that they didn't want to go there for fear of transmitting back images that might demoralize the public resolve for the jihad against the Christian Serbs.
This is exactly what motivates useful idiots in the press, like that NYTimes slime investigative reporter, Peter whathisname, who was accused last week of informing an Al Qaeda front charity that the FBI was about to raid their office. The NYTimes then went to court to protect their reporters phone calls.
"My personal feelings; if you're not an American first, you're not an American."
EXACTLY!!!!!!
Well said.
The difference between liberals and conservatives expressed so well!
"Would he risk the lives of American soldiers to rescue him? Without missing a beat, the officer replied, "Of course not, he's not an American, he's a journalist."
LOL!
Payback's a b***h, MSM.
Here's the transcript:
"Moderator: Colonel Connell, I can see the venomous reaction you are having in hearing all this.
Colonel Connell [USMC]: (Angrily) I feel utter contempt. Two days later they (the reporters – Jennings and Wallace) are both walking off my hilltop and they get ambushed and they’re lying there wounded. And they’re going to expect I’m going to send Marines up there to get them. They’re just journalists. They’re not Americans. Is that a fair reaction? You can’t have it both ways. But I’ll do it. And that’s what makes me so contemptuous of them. Marines will die going to get…(grippingly) a couple of journalists."
http://www.usafa.af.mil/jscope/JSCOPE02/Cassella02.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/876131/posts
Nice update!
Thanks. I (obviously) missed that part.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.