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May 03, 2004
BAD TIMES BUT A GREAT NIGHTLINE.
Last Friday night while doing my late night reading, I had Nightline, the reading of the fallen, running in the background. As Ted Koppel named each person who had died in the Iraq War, I periodically glanced at the screen. Soon, I was glued to the tube.
What struck me were the ages of those who've served and died. Many were in their 30's and 40's. Highly reminiscent of the EARLIEST days of Viet Nam when career soldiers were there, dying, and the numbers were small.
It was during the early "Viet Nam Conflict" when I'd guess few Americans actually knew someone, even 2-3 degrees away, who had fallen. Yet, in a targeted way across America the "Conflict" had hit home and was very REAL.
I lived in a small town. I vaguely remember one of our neighboring towns had an early Viet Nam casualty. I was around Jr. High age. My parents knew the family and the dead pilot left behind a wife and young kids. I remember the pain on my parent's faces and heard the "whispers" as they discussed it. By the time I was graduating high school six years later, Viet Nam seemed like a slaughter house for those "unfortunate enough" to get drafted.
By then it seemed EVERYONE knew someone who was serving, had been
wounded or had fallen.
I couldn't help but wonder if we would have had a Nightline broadcast with that size of audience reach back in 1966, one so capable of personalizing the war on behalf of the early "fallen", would we have been better able to avoid the buzz saw of Viet Nam's momentum in the 70's?
As for Sinclair Broadcasting opting not to broadcast Nightline's reading of the fallen across the ABC Affiliates it owns, because they felt "it isn't in the public interest." Unbelievable. Time and again I find it remarkable that Americans forget that WE own the broadcast airwaves. At a minimum the families of The Fallen who wanted the broadcast should demand that the FCC yank Sinclair's licenses. Many Americans would support them.
Think about it, showing The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, Survivor, and Extreme Makeover are in the "public interest"?! Having Ted Koppel read names of those killed in Iraq isn't?!
As ABC's own 20/20 John Stossel would say:
Give Me a Break!!!!!
Posted by rich at May 3, 2004 09:53 PM
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