32

Opening and Closing Arguments

and Highlights of

the Great Media Trial

SESSION ONE—8 OCTOBER 1981—“The Media,” Bobby began, “is hereby defined as the information promulgation branch of our society. This branch’s activities consist of collecting, compiling, analyzing, condensing and distributing information. The media includes, but is not limited to the major news organizations of radio, TV and the press; the entertainment adjuncts of film, TV, the visual and audio arts and literature; plus public historical, political and commercial presentations. We name here as codefendants the Free World and United States television networks; news magazines and newspapers; film studios; academia—in particular history, political science, government and law, and sociology departments; and the national political parties and their information arms.”

Bobby paused. Murmurs arose, crested. To the prosecutors—Mark Renneau, Don Wagner and Tony Pisano—the definition had been too restrictive. To the defense counsels—Gary Sherrick, Carl Mariano and Frank Denahee—the construct and designation had been too broad. From some vets came hoots of approval, from others jeers of derision. Behind the audience Arnold Tilden glanced at James Alban and both professors smirked. The atmosphere was light, happy, as if at the gala opening of a new play.

“Counsel for the prosecution,” Bobby said, “are you ready?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Mark Renneau answered crisply.

“Defense?”

Sherrick stood, looked at Wapinski, turned to Renneau, then to the jury. “Yes Sir.”

“Bailiff, read the charges.”

“Sir.” Kevin Rifkin acknowledged Wapinski. In a clear voice he said, “The Media is hereby charged with: collusion with the enemy resulting in Communist victories in Viet Nam, Laos, and Cambodia; with willful misrepresentations leading to the polarization of American society; with conspiracy to undermine the U.S. government and military; with the malicious skewing of information, which has damaged the democratic aspirations of peoples around the earth; and with incompetence.”

“How do the defendants plea?” Wapinski asked.

“Not guilty on all counts,” Sherrick answered.

“Let it be so noted,” Wapinski said to the court, “that the defendants have entered pleas of not guilty.”

“Naturally!” Don Wagner blurted. Before he could be silenced, he added, “The media’s the only unaccountable element of our society. They always deny—”

“Order!” Wapinski rapped his hammer on the sheet metal break. “Order!”

“Put a cork in it,” Mariano snapped at Wagner.

“Order!” Wapinski raised his voice.

“Sanctimonious jackasses,” Wagner shot back.

Witnesses and observers began to laugh. In the jury box Calvin Dee nudged Felix Defabretti, was about to speak when Wapinski boomed, “SHUT UP!” That snapped faces forward. “Prosecutors, present your first opening argument.” Wapinski started his stopwatch.

Mark Renneau rose. Slowly, emulating Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird, he sauntered to the jury box. He looked from juror to juror making eye contact with each. “Gentlemen,” Renneau said. “You meet someone. He says, ‘Who are you?’ You answer with your name. But he says, ‘You are not your name. Who are you?’ Again you answer but this time you tell the story of yourself because that is who you truly are.” Renneau paused. At the defense table Gary Sherrick scribbled a note.

“Gentlemen,” Renneau backed away from the jury, “you have heard the charges and the defendants’ pleas. The prosecution will break the Viet Nam War down into five phases and, in regard to each phase, will demonstrate the media’s guilt on each and every charge. We will detail the media’s collusion with Hanoi’s propaganda ministry and how this led to the debasement of the allied cause and the collapse of will. We will show how the willful misrepresentation of story by the media has led to or exacerbated many of our nation’s present political and social problems; how elements of the media conspired to undermine faith in and allegiance to this nation, its government and the armed forces legally raised, armed, and deployed by this government. We will present evidence of the malicious and purposeful skewing of information leading to the derailment of democratic aspirations. And finally, we will document the unquestionable incompetence of the media, particularly the broadcast medias, as a system for full, accurate, and unbiased information distribution to our society. And we will show that the ramifications of these acts have so poisoned our culture that our national myth, our story, America as a concept, as a noble experiment, is endangered and on the brink of extinction.”

Again Renneau paused. He turned from the jury but did not return to the prosecutor’s table. Casually he edged to where Sal Ianez was tape-recording the proceedings. “You gettin this, Sal?” Renneau asked quietly. Ianez raised his one arm, shook his fist in affirmation. “Good,” Mark said. Then, to Wapinski, then turning to the audience and back to the jury, he said loudly, “Your Honor, we additionally will show that basic American actions and policies, and the causes and reasons behind those actions and policies, were justified and noble. And we will show that generally the policies were carried out efficiently, altruistically, and with competence. But first, the prosecution would like to establish the reach of the media into our lives and the importance to our culture of the story thereby told.”

“That’s your time, Mark,” Bobby said. “Let’s hear the first of the defense’s opening arguments. Then we’ll go back to the prosecution for ... Who’s going second for the pros ...”

“I am,” Tony Pisano said.

“Okay.” Bobby nodded. “Let me remind all of you that comments are limited to four minutes but that we will return to any counsel or witness as many times as necessary to fully probe, detail, and quantify the topic. Gary, your first counsel.”

“Thank you.” Sherrick rose quickly, moved quickly to the center before Wapinski, moved as if emphasizing the difference between himself and Mark Renneau. “Your Honor,” Sherrick commanded everyone’s attention, “the defense moves for immediate dismissal of all charges.”

“Excuse me?” Bobby was caught off guard. Again the ambient murmuring rose, filled the big barn with a cacophony of grunts, snickers, huhs? and ooooos.

“The defense,” Sherrick repeated, “moves for the immediate dismissal of all charges on the grounds that the defendants have been falsely charged with crimes they could not possibly have committed.”

“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.

Jeremiah Gallagher took the stand. “The story changed drastically after publication of the Pentagon Papers,” he explained. “These documents, or at least the fraction carried by the mass media, about ten percent, seemed to prove that America under Truman and Eisenhower supported French colonialism and opposed Viet Namese nationalism.

“Yet,” Gallagher continued, “as a result of an agreement by the Big Three at Yalta, in the immediate post-World War Two period, France, prodded by the United States, set, if reluctantly, upon a course to grant independence to its colonies. By stages France did grant Cambodia and Laos independence, with full independence being given during the year preceding Dien Bien Phu. One can argue that ‘granting’ and ‘giving’ were not the just rights of the colonial powers—that colonies always had the right to independence. If you feel such, substitute the word acquiesced. The reality is the same.

“But in Viet Nam the independence process was thwarted because of a violent anticolonial movement. Ho Chi Minh and the communists needed the antagonism of the French to rise to, and to consolidate, power. Instead of supporting nationalist causes, Ho actually undermined all non-communist, anticolonial, proindependence organizations through various means including the assassination of their leaders. After the Geneva Accords divided Viet Nam into the communist North and the non-communist South, Ho’s party, between ’54 and ’56, consolidated internal control via Stalinesque tactics. In 1956 the peasants of Ho’s home province, Nghe An, revolted. This uprising was crushed by the communists’ 325th Division. At that time the Hungarian Revolution was also being crushed. Media attention was focused on Europe, and the tyranny in Southeast Asia was ignored. Nghe An was one of thousands of incidents of communist oppression that were virtually disregarded by the media. Today those barbarities are continuously left out of the retelling of what happened, and of how America became involved.”

Gary Sherrick cross-examined. “Might not the rise of Ho Chi Minh and the communists be seen as a justifiable reaction, as a backlash, to colonialism?”

“Yeah. Maybe. But they didn’t have to—”

“And might not it be said that Ho Chi Minh was driven by his abhorrence of imperialism?”

“That doesn’t justify—”

“Maybe,” Sherrick said. His expression changed. “There was a navy doctor, Tom Dooley, who wrote several books about this period.” Sherrick smiled. “Did you read them?”

“Yes,” Gallagher answered.

“And you’ve cited other sources for your claims.”

“Yes. You have my bibliography.”

“Um. It was extensive. You found quite a bit of information, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it wasn’t ignored, was it?”

“It was by the mass—” Gallagher began.

Sherrick cut him off. “It’s available to anyone who wishes to look, isn’t it?”

“Come on, Gary. That’s not what this is about. We’re talking general public knowledge.”

“Are we?” Sherrick asked. “You’ve accused my clients of fraud, cover-up, malicious skewings and misrepresentations, yet you have used sources produced by my clients to establish that my clients haven’t produced those sources.”

“The information’s only there if you dig for it,” Gallagher snapped.

“Then perhaps you should accuse the public of laziness, not the media of conspiracy.”

Ed Fernandez testified about the early period in the South. “Despite having to deal with a deluge of refugees from the North—the equivalent of the U.S. attempting to resettle nearly eighteen million refugees within a two-year span—the Saigon regime was developing a modicum of political legitimacy, international acceptance and economic growth. In contrast to the severe regimentation in the North, the South, with American economic assistance, was blossoming. Ho Chi Minh’s agents saw that Ngo Dinh Diem not only was not on the verge of collapse, as had been anticipated, but that the South held more promise and more hope than did the North. These observations were reported in May 1959 to the Hanoi politburo at the Fifteenth Plenum. In response, Ho Chi Minh ordered the establishment of a supply trail from the North to the South, and the resuscitation of the guerrilla war—this time against the Saigon government.

“The myths here,” Fernandez said, “are first that the South, because of its chaotic pluralism and observable repression of various sects, was highly unstable; and that Ho Chi Minh was the legitimate leader of the North, while Ngo Dinh Diem, a Catholic in a Confucian and Buddhist country, was an illegitimate ruler in the South. Without denying any of the South’s significant problems, these conclusions simply are not true. Had the North Viet Namese communists not launched their war against the South, including, by 1962, the assassination of approximately one thousand hamlet, village, district and province officials each month, South Viet Nam today might be the democratic and economic equal of South Korea.”

“Objection,” Sherrick blurted. “Conjecture.”

“Sustained,” Bobby agreed.

Sherrick’s cross-examination again demonstrated that the “myths” the prosecution perceived were mirages the prosecution had created and then dispelled using information from public media reports.

Deeper into the session historical myths about the ’60 to ’67 period, and Tet of ’68, were presented and parried by the defense. Every prosecution witness was followed by a defense witness who reestablished the foundation for the “myths,” and who in turn was cross-examined by either Renneau, the Wagner or Pisano. Like the defense, the prosecution was able to discredit every testimony by showing how each was limited in depth and focus.

After the break the Myth Busters altered their tactics. “Americans were animals at My Lai but that incident was minor in the scope of the war. Yet of a total of 9,447 network evening news stories about the war that aired between 1963 and 1977,” Al Palanzo testified, “473 dealt with the atrocity at My Lai. The media focused and fixated on this single incident which represented three of every one hundred thousand war deaths. The NVA assassinated six thousand Saigon government civilian personnel in 1970. That did not receive one minute of American television air time. Not one minute!

“The ramifications of this reportage are the labeling of allied soldiers as baby killers, and the dissolution of the moral rightness of the cause. By the way,” Al added, “these media figures have never been made public, and are not now in the public record. They have been derived from an internal network report.”

That seemed to catch Sherrick and the defense off balance. He questioned Palanzo at length about his source and how the information had been obtained. Then he requested that the evidence be declared inadmissible. Bobby ruled against him. Sherrick called Derrick Eaton and Steven Smith to the stand for the defense. They spoke of atrocities they’d seen, exclaimed that My Lai itself may have been a drop in the bucket but that it represented all American atrocities, reported and unreported, “which probably numbered in the millions.” Renneau cross-examined Eaton; Pisano took on Smith. The point stalemated.

The role of the media with regard to the Easter Offensive of 1972 was examined next. Data was presented about the NVA’s 200,000-man, 500-tank, three-pronged attack that included the communist four-division assault on Quang Tri and Thua Thien provinces, their successful capture of Dak To, and their siege of An Loc. Civilian casualty figures were presented along with a picture of the vast uprooting of millions of South Viet Namese. Then John Manfrieda explained how, without this massive, communist conventional-military assault, none of the casualties would have occurred. Manfrieda continued on about how the bombing of Hanoi and the mining of Haiphong were reactions to that NVA assault. “Yet,” Manfrieda said, “the story was skewed away from communist assaults on civilians, away from communist atrocities, and away from Soviet and Chinese collaboration, to U.S. military reactions and antiwar demonstrations in the U.S. Even when South Viet Namese ground forces, assisted only by U.S. air power, blunted, countered, and defeated the attacking force—causing the infamous NVA general, Vo Nguyen Giap, victor of Dien Bien Phu, to be relieved of command—the media concentrated its attention on American bomb damage to civilian areas of Hanoi and Haiphong, and on antiwar speeches by members of Congress. Just as Tet ’68 was reported,” Manfrieda continued, “so too was the communist Nguyen Hue Offensive first labeled a communist victory, then, when the counteroffensive crushed the attacks, this real victory was ignored and never reported. That is collusion. That is misrepresentation. Four hundred seventy-three stories on the several hundred American-committed murders at My Lai; but only twenty-six stories on the upwards of 25,000 civilian deaths caused by that NVA offensive. That is malicious skewing of available information.

“It is only through military documents of the time, not through public press stories, that I was able to document these assertions,” Manfrieda continued. “In light of communist documents released in 1978, what I have told you is irrefutable. These documents, too, were essentially ignored by all but the most esoteric journals.”

Sherrick and the defense were not deterred. That perhaps the prosecution had established a beachhead to biased reportage was of no concern. The charge was malicious skewing, and the prosecution had yet to present any evidence of malice.

Session Three—22 October 1981—The prosecution directed its attacks away from historical phases myths to ambient myths: the “Viet Cong as a ragtag peasant army of ‘minutemen’ instantly abandoning their paddies when called to arms” myth versus the “highly structured proselytizing organization partially directed by Northern cadre, and composed—only one in ten was an armed combatant—primarily of unarmed, impressed peasants, of part-time bureaucrats, and of full-time autocrats” reality; the “unwinnable war” myth versus the “allied military victory and political forfeiture” reality; the “no safe place in Viet Nam because there were no ‘front lines’” myth versus the “physical distribution of violence, which clearly showed, with the exception of the major offensives of ’68, ’72 and ’75, that there were, albeit vague, ‘front lines,’ and that the populated areas were relatively peaceful” reality; the “war never changed and was a quagmire of meaningless firefights and death” myth versus the “phases coupled with their adjunct social, political, economic and martial evolution” reality; the “all GIs were druggies” myth versus the “actual figures for different periods, which showed early drug use was virtually unknown and that it did not become epidemic (ten percent users) until the withdrawal phase was well under way, and that overall heroin addiction was less than one percent” reality; and on and on.

After the break Hollywood and literature were examined. “Images are Tinseltown’s business,” Mike Hawley stated. “‘High concept,’” he quoted a trade journal, “that is, a story so simplified it can be reduced to one sentence, ‘is what producers want today. How it is said is more important than what is said.’” Hawley reviewed images from Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, Heroes, and Coming Home. He identified “prowar” and “antiwar” themes and gave detailed examples using well-known scenes. “‘The stories,’” he quoted from a Newsweek review, “‘tend to be relentlessly downbeat and the protagonists are invariably antiheroic—war-numbed GIs who lop off enemy soldiers’ ears, or unhinged veterans like the character ... in Heroes.’ The problem,” Hawley concluded, “is inherent to the nature of this medium—simplicity, drama, and temporocentricism. As one major publisher put it, ‘There has been no counterwave of exculpatory literature to balance these bleak accounts.’”

“Temporocentricism?” Carl Mariano asked on cross-examination.

“The pattern or need of centering on only one’s moment in time,” Mike Hawley explained. “Ethnocentricism and temporocentricism narrow our perceptions and knowledge by ignoring other-culture activities and historical antecedents. For example, if the storytellers relay only what Americans did in a specific and limited circumstance, without relaying the antecedents that placed a faceless enemy in the sights of the home-boys, the viewer can only judge the American action in the snapshot of presented time. Meanings, motives, and reasons are lost. Gary himself talked about shallow conclusions being drawn from shallow presentations.”

Rich Urbanowski followed Hawley and attacked literary produce. He quoted one best-selling novelist who’d written about the emotional baggage of his dope-smoking, cocaine-sniffing, baby-killing characters and then said in an interview at Nittany Mountain College, “They aren’t me. I wasn’t like that.”

Sam Linderman presented his analysis of the syllabi from forty college courses being taught on the war. He took academia to task for “its politically driven curricula,” for its lauding of the works of Noam Chomsky and D. Gareth Porter; and he demonstrated that thirty-six of the forty courses were highly slanted. As Linderman explained, “There seems to be a preponderance of sixties liberals who are now professors or assistant professors because they stayed in school to avoid the draft.”

Session Four—29 October 1981—“A race war,” Ty Mohammed said. “Racism pervaded every aspect of our lives there and it ran the war.” In the audience, in the jury box, on the loft floor, even behind the prosecution’s table, white vets and white students slightly bowed their heads or shifted their eyes. Of all the topics this was the most discomforting. Feelings of guilt, of being from the privileged class, of being one with the Oppressor, of a need to listen and acquiesce, ranged from subtle to strong, but they were universal. On the other hand, the black and Hispanic vets were vocal and virtually split down the middle on the issue of racism in Viet Nam.

“Black soldiers went and fought,” Ty testified, ‘because we wanted to prove we were part of America. We wanted to show whites that we held the same ideals. We thought that going would gain us respect. We thought racism and stigmatization would end. Then we got there. Millions of us, some of us part of McNamara’s Hundred Thousand that was really two hundred forty-six thousand, that took indigent young black men with dismal educations—See, they knew what they were lookin for. Get the dumb niggers to go be-boppin in the paddies like ... who said it ... flypaper. They were lookin for cannon fodder and scarfed up nearly a quarter million young bloods. Then they exploited us. It is well documented that there were more black soldiers killed in Nam than white soldiers. I know a lot of you are thinking, shee-it, I saw lots of whites killed too. And that is true. But mostly it was blacks, browns and reds because The System put us in infantry units while it put most whites in supply or transportation or even artillery. Whites, when they got killed, were helicopter pilots or doorgunners or truck drivers that hit mines. When a brother got greased he was humpin a 60 in the boonies or he was on the perimeter at a forward base like Khe Sanh. You understand me. I don’t mean all. I mean in general. I mean the average white and the average black and that is the story the media told because they told about average guys.

“I know lots of guys here, white guys, humped too. I know whites bled just like blacks. But it was disproportionate. And we shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, ‘We are taking young black men who have been crippled by our society and sending them 8,000 miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they have not found in Southwest Georgia or in East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together at the same school.’

“See,” Ty continued. “I’m not sayin anything against white vets. I’m sayin blacks gave more and got less. I’m sayin the true evils lay with The System. When I was charged with possession, Man, The System that prosecuted me, including my own defense counsel, was all white. That is not justice. I’m ashamed of things I did in Nam. But I shouldn’t have been there. And even though I served, I have a racially instigated bad paper discharge that stigmatizes me. Rodney says the war was a ruse by white capitalists to eliminate a lot of young bloods because we were just beginning to come into our own. Racism is about power and the power hierarchy knew how to maintain. If lots of whites were wasted that was acceptable because whites outnumber blacks nine to one. This was a war within a war. It cost one hundred and twenty billion tax dollars. That don’t include interest. The war was fought by sons of minorities and by sons of the poor.”

“Amen,” Rodney Smith shouted.

“No questions,” Tony Pisano said.

“You may step down.” Wapinski shook his head. “Who’s next?”

“The prosecution calls Steve Travellers,” Mark Renneau said. The buzzing within the barn remained subdued but the craning of necks and the rocking of bodies was pronounced.

“Uncle Tom,” Rodney hooted. From the jury box Calvin Dee flashed Rodney a power fist. Then Rodney and Ty began an elaborate dap.

“Order,” Wapinski called out.

“A lot of dying was done by black soldiers,” Steve Travellers began. “And it is true that significantly more blacks than whites, in relationship to their respective percentages of U.S. population, started out being killed and wounded in Viet Nam. Quantifying that significance, however, illuminates the story. Especially since some in the old antiwar movement, and some historians today, regard the U.S. effort as racist, that is, ‘a white man’s war fought by the sons of blacks and other ethnic minorities.’ Or if the effort wasn’t racist, they describe it in economic or class terms; ‘a rich man’s war fought by the sons of the working-class poor.’ But is this true? And if it is, or if it isn’t, what ramifications has the story had?

“African-Americans constitute 12.9 per cent of the U.S. population. In the early years of the American build-up, there is no doubt that this minority was disproportionately deployed in infantry units. In ’65 and ’66, blacks accounted for 20 percent of all combat deaths. The armed forces recognized this, perhaps because of media exposition, and took corrective action. In ’67 black combat deaths fell to 13 percent of all American KIAs. By 1972, and remember half of all U.S. casualties came after January ’69, the percentage of KIAs who were black dropped to 7.6. From the beginning to the end, of 47,244 American combat deaths, 5,711, or 12.1 percent, were African-American. This is a statistically significant difference but not only is it not the ‘half of all deaths’ some politicians, commentators and ‘historians’ have claimed, it is actually significant in the opposite direction. Hey, Ty, maybe it was a race war, huh? But then you’d have to say it was to kill whitey. By the way, other racial minorities accounted for less than two percent of the KIAs.

“Damn it,” Travellers continued, “that argument, that image, hurts black pride more than it enhances it. It pushes people who believe the racist-war theory into a victim-sucker self-image. Is that you, Ty? Calvin? Rodney? You want to live that stereotype? Maybe you want that to be your story because it excuses you from overcoming the very real racism we are up against.

“Black soldiers in Viet Nam, in general, like white soldiers, did an outstanding job of soldiering. It was the first war in which the armed forces were truly integrated, and the physical closeness and interdependency of blacks and whites created intense and meaningful friendships. This had never before happened in America on such a massive scale. That the media missed that story and instead chose to report racist fraggings says to me those reporters and editors were more interested in the sensational than the truth, no matter the consequences. Perhaps the vested interest in racism is not held by the capitalists but by the journalists.

“Consequences!” Travellers balled both his fists, placed them on his thighs, leaned forward in the witness chair. “The consequences of the race-war story are a new and deeper polarization between races in America. That was unnecessary. It is tragic.

“U.S. policy wasn’t antiblack. There were other social and cultural phenomena working in America in the sixties that created the early bias and the lopsided results. For example, the percent of blacks in The Old South was higher than in the rest of the country, and The South was the most promilitary, or the most patriotic, region in the U.S. That led to higher enlistment rates. The percent of southerners killed is significantly higher than troops from other regions. But southern blacks and southern whites were killed at rates proportionate to their regional demographics.

“I examined serious incident reports, too. Fraggings, mostly. I don’t know how pervasive fraggings were, but the black director of the army’s Office of Equal Opportunity reported that in Viet Nam 1970 was the worst year. That year two hundred GIs were wounded or murdered by fellow troops in racial incidents; two hundred out of 500,000 in twelve months, including rotations. It is significant, but keep it in perspective. That’s one in every twenty-five hundred. And it can be argued that the racial tension that led to many of those incidents was stirred up by inaccurate and misleading media reports. That’s their vested interest again.

“I strongly believe that the separation of white and black America today, and the resurgence of hate groups, is directly tied to the misinformation aired by the mass media about blacks and whites in Viet Nam. I also believe that the decline, economically and socially, of the three-quarters of all African-Americans who did not advance under the Civil Rights laws, is a direct ramification of this misinformation, which robs black vets and the black community of their pride, and fills them with additional and unnecessary resentment at government and at whites in general.

“What would have happened had the media focused on interracial harmony, interracial cooperation, interracial camaraderie that existed in Nam? Let me project a different scenario. What if the media had told a different, and in reality a more accurate, story? What would have been the ramifications to the present?”

“Objection,” Sherrick spoke up. “Conjecture.”

“Overruled,” Wapinski countered. “He’s only asked the question, not answered it.”

“It’s still leading,” Sherrick said.

“Screw it,” Travellers snapped. “These guys don’t want to hear this stuff. It interrupts their self-image.”

The Last Session—5 November 1981—All week the vets had bickered, aided, cajoled or snubbed each other. The weather turned colder. High Meadow lay shrouded in a thick mist. Inside the barn Vu Van Hieu took the witness stand. He was neither prosecution nor defense witness.

“I will just say some things and you use how you like,” Hieu began. He then related his experiences after the fall of Saigon, told of the imprisonments, tortures and killings he’d seen, of the extrapolation of thousands of refugee reports into the conclusion that a bloodbath—70,000 killed in the first ninety days—had indeed occurred. “Maybe the media,” Hieu said, “say little about this because we are not Americans. Or maybe because that would shame them because they say earlier no bloodbath will happen.

“Viet Namese people do the same. We too were blind. Before we lost our country many of my friends say we live under the yoke of American imperialism. My countrymen were free to say that. Even members of my family called for us to support this communist five-point plan or that communist ten-point plan.

“During the American time my countrymen stick their noses into every ministry and every prison in South Viet Nam and they raise hell about corruption and moral turpitude. They show the world tiger cages. They say their own families are cruel and inhuman. They expose this general for bribery, that one for having a fifteen-year-old mistress. They cheer when an American flag is burned, and when they see pictures of Americans ripping their draft cards, and when the pictures are of someone waving a communist flag on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

“On 30 April we were liberated and we were no longer blind. Even for NLF leaders like Duong Quynh Hoa and Truong Nhu Tang, and opposition journalists like Ngo Cong Duc and Ly Chanh Trung, liberation too gives the miracle of sight. Now they see with their own eyes how all Viet Namese live happily, united in peace and freedom. We are so happy now that maybe two million enemies of the state are locked away in new economic zones, that maybe one million risk escape in tiny boats, maybe half happy to end up as fish food. Since liberation no tiger cages. Since liberation no opposition. Since liberation no prostitutes, no marijuana, no terrorists.

“Since liberation tiger camps! Since liberation opposition stamped into the earth by the PAVN which has more than five million soldiers to control the people. Since liberation twelve Buddhist monks protest Hanoi’s repression by self-immolation. Why are there no pictures in the world press? Why are there no pictures, is because there are no photographers in Viet Nam except those approved by the state? Since liberation prostitutes can only work for party members, dope only sold by government cadre, terrorism only run by the state.

“Yes, now I see. There was much disinformation, and I was blind, but now I can see. If you still suffer disinformation, maybe it covers just how wrong so many were about the war. They say liberation and oppression just happen or are inevitable and not a communist long-term plan. Americans don’t want to believe the communists had their plan and worked their plan and not just in the South but in Laos and Cambodia, too. Americans don’t want to believe there was preconceived malice. The communists have a plan for America, too. To me this is very frightening. They hide from us their intent. Then Americans say communists have no plan. Communists do not enslave Viet Nam. If you gain your sight you too must see, must believe the communists have a plan—for your country, too.”

After the break Tony Pisano delivered the prosecution’s closing argument. He was at a loss as to where to begin, what to include. Wapinski had warned both sides they needed to reserve time for the jury to deliberate and report its verdict.

“Who are we?” Tony looked at the jurors, then the audience. “We are the stories of ourselves. We are the ethos and the mythos. We are our history and our interpretation and selective recollection of that history. This shapes us. This tells us who we are, what our beliefs and ideals are, what our behavior must be to be consistent with that self-image. Upon story one can forecast the future.

“The communists, too, have a story. They were and are determined to remake all Southeast Asia in their own antidemocratic image—no matter the cost, no matter the lives lost, no matter the misery produced. Their determination lured us, albeit as their opposition, into their story. We clashed militarily. We clashed culturally, not so much American versus Viet Namese but free democratic idealism versus rigid Asian communist tyranny. Today’s true story is the story of the clash of these stories.

“We have examined both stories in regard to the war. We have seen how and by whom the combined story was told, where it was accurate, where skewed from reality. We have seen the impact of story on America. We’ve felt the impact. Hell, we are the impact!

“Because of this, we have indicted the media on the charges of collusion, misrepresentation, conspiracy, malicious skewing, and incompetence.

“Remember back to a time when we were young, when we were enthusiastic. Didn’t we believe in our decency? We have always been decent men. In having gone, in having served, we affirmed our ideals, our belief in the value of every human life, in the value of freedom, democracy, self-rule and self-empowerment. Many of us made this choice in the face of ‘anti-war-ism’ and with the full knowledge that we may be wounded or killed. But we went, fought. We upheld an ethical obligation to human rights, and the ethical principles of freedom and democratic aspirations which we believed were the inalienable rights of all humans.

“For this we have been assaulted because the mistelling of our story is an assault upon us. For a decent person to be accused of deplorable acts is devastating. Yet the story told of our involvement has been the story of atrocities, of drug abuse, of racism, of dispirited and incompetent fighting, of cowering at night and bullying by day—all for an immoral cause.

“The media and the Left have usurped the moral high ground, and have held it tenaciously for thirteen years. Yet it is a lie. In the early sixties, some of America’s most influential journalists, feeling betrayed by LBJ, lost sight of the cause of freedom. Their personal meaning was debased. They projected their own loss of meaning as if it were universal. That is the origin of many of the myths we’ve exposed. That is the reason for the denial of victories and valor. That is why victories, valor and altruism have been lost in the national myth-making process.

“Every one of you here knows of the problems of evil and the possibilities of virtue. The media set out to convince the world of the destiny, the inevitability, the fate of Viet Nam. Essentially they labeled the American effort evil, the communist effort virtuous. The universe is not the Great Machine of the Mechanistic Determinists of centuries past. Predetermination, fatalism, manifest destiny, the lack of free will, and the inability to impact situations for the good are lies that soothe the complicity of the liar.

“We have shown how, by omission, by biased selection, and by ethnocentric focus—AND because of greed as defined by Nielsen ratings—the media-created myth destroyed the American sense of duty that characterized the great bulk of our fighting men in Viet Nam. We have shown that the media’s concentration on American shortcomings and failures was, beyond reasonable doubt, a conspiracy; that this conspiracy has altered the American myth and thusly the American character in negative ways. The tragedy here is that into the void has seeped skepticism, intolerance, and hatred. We tell ourselves we are no good. We are evil. We are sick. We kill infants and civilians. And we accept and assimilate those characteristics as part of our national character. We fret about what we’ve become, and the scapegoat for that fretting is the American veteran!

“Once idealized as a melting-pot of opportunity, American society has become a victim of altered self-perception, has been purposefully polarized by the media to its ultimate gain in both wealth and power.

“We have shown that ‘antiwar’ was not antiwar; that ‘conscientious objection’ was not conscientious; that ‘idealists’ without action or understanding hold no ideals; that the ‘moral high ground’ of the media is a veneer hiding a soulless and greed-motivated multibillion-dollar industry—a mind junkie that few can resist.”

Bobby interrupted. “One minute left, Tony. Speed it up.”

“Oooo. Ah ... The results of the misinformation we’ve come to believe as our story is that we no longer believe in freedom—that will be the downfall of America. Our cause is dead. What is left is money. What is left is, ‘What’s in our national interest.’ The liberty of others is not our concern. We no longer believe in sacrificing to maintain government of the people, by the people, for the people. Our only belief is in economic determinism, the power of money. This is penultimate. It will shatter and we will fall.

“This is not to say we did not make mistakes over there. Nor that some of the lessons we’ve learned aren’t valid. It is to say that the one paramount thing America has grasped from our involvement—call it the Viet Nam Syndrome—is that we can’t, won’t and shouldn’t fight for freedom, for others or for ourselves. I maintain, the abuse of power in the pursuit of freedom does not justify the abandonment of that pursuit. Nor does the abuse of freedom justify the elimination of freedom. Choosing to not defend freedom, integrity and human rights leads to abuses, atrocities and holocausts far worse than war. In war there remains an element of hope; under tyranny, hope is destroyed.

“The media’s role and tactics have been to hold out to us images of suffering and need, then once action has been taken to depict pitfalls and failures, to criticize via negative dialectics that attack the solutions of the problem solvers without offering alternatives. In this way the critic becomes immune to criticism, the media’s projection of its own moral mountain fortress is secure. For the nonmedia what is left is hopelessness. And the hopeless, the disempowered, are easy to control.”

“Time,” Bobby said.

“Just one more point,” Tony pleaded.

“We’re running late,” Bobby answered.

“Knowing what really happened there,” Tony plunged on, “what we did and didn’t do, who we fought and what they did and didn’t do; knowing who we are; knowing that we contributed to this country and the world; it insulates you from all those subtle attacks and all those insidious references and then no one can ever again make you into a second-class citizen. Thank you.”

Tony shuffled to the prosecutor’s table. His head was down. The barn was generally quiet. Tony felt terrible, felt as though he’d failed miserably.

Gary Sherrick rose. This was the moment many vets had anticipated, some with loathing as if they were in an NDP awaiting an enemy assault, some with glee as if payback time had arrived.

Sherrick paced his words. “Walter Cronkite is an evil man.” Sherrick chuckled. He raised his eyes to the rafters. “Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Harry Reasoner—evil, evil, evil.” Sherrick crossed his arms, let his gaze descend to the men in the loft. “Who amongst you,” his voice rose, his head came down, he spun, locked the jurors in his stare, “believes this?! Who here believes NBC, CBS, or ABC had men in Hanoi who met with the communist information minister and reported his propaganda as the sole truth? Or even the sole story?! Were there reports of communist programs? Of North Viet Namese policies? Of Hanoi’s perspectives? Of NLF plans?” Sherrick paused. Then he barked out, “Certainly! The prosecution acts as if the U.S. media should be the propaganda ministry of the U.S. government. Is that what you want?! Is that who you want to control your story? Are you willing to give the government your mind?!”

Again Sherrick paused, stood still. Then he stepped toward the jury, and just above a whisper said, “Gentlemen, think what you are doing here. Collusion with the enemy. We have seen evidence that the media reported Hanoi’s perspectives but we have seen no evidence, let me repeat that, no evidence, of collusion. Not once did the prosecution even suggest that network officials or film directors met behind closed doors with communist leaders to plot against America’s role in Viet Nam. One American actress sitting on an antiaircraft gun is no more collusion than one actor coming down from his mount with his clay tablets and declaring our cause just.

“These incidents are but single grapes in entire bunches; but one sheet of glass amid an entire visible collector array. What of films; what of academia? The prosecution has equated academia with Noam Chomsky and D. Gareth Porter. These are but two men of an entire group. Whether they are right or wrong you cannot convict academia of conspiracy on the expressions of a few individuals who may hold views which oppose your own. Do these men not have every right to their opinions, every right to express those opinions?

“On misrepresentation leading to polarization, particularly racial polarization, the prosecution has acted as if Africans were not brought to America in chains to slave in fields for whites—as if the cause for polarization is not deeper than the prosecution’s own temporocentric perspectives; as if, had the racially motivated fraggings not been reported, three hundred years of repression would have been forgiven and forgotten. Please, tell me ... No, tell yourselves, who is misrepresenting The American Story.

“We have been told that there existed a media conspiracy against the government, that this conspiracy caused the debasement of the cause, the loss of hope and meaning, and the ascendance of brain-dead politicians and slick willies. The defense has consistently demonstrated that the media do not, did not, and have not ever spoken in one thematic voice—which would be necessary for conspiracy. We have also examined alternative explanations for the debasement of the cause, and these include the perspective that the cause was indeed debased from its inception. That the administrations may be the stimulus behind the loss of hope and meaning is more plausible to me than laying this charge at the doors of this information branch which is so vast not all the condos in Pittsburgh have enough doors ... well, you get the picture.

“What of malicious skewing? We have seen evidence of misinformation, this is true. And we have seen evidence of skewing and of ethnocentric reportage. The defense does not deny this. But this is not the charge. The charge is malicious skewing resulting in damage to democratic aspirations.” Sherrick snickered. “Perhaps we could rewrite the story and title it ‘The Malice of Walter Cronkite.’ Would that please the prosecution? Humph! Is there malice in attempting to stop bloodshed? Is there malice in bringing into our living rooms proof positive of the failures of our own government policies? NO! This is not malice. This is the identical idealism of which Tony spoke. And if the democratic aspirations of some Southeast Asians were damaged, well, as Hieu said, most of his countrymen were blind to democratic aspirations—”

Bobby interrupted. “That’s not what he said, Gary. The jury will disregard that comment. Wrap it up now.”

“Hmm. Okay. Lastly I want to address incompetence. Who here is infallible? Who here has never made a mistake? You can point to errors and call the media incompetent but that also is not the case. Indeed, the American public has never been so well informed. We are awash in a sea of data, of stories, of information which covers an entire three-dimensional spectrum. We are today the most informed people on earth.

“Think, Gentlemen, about what you want. Hieu described a world in which there are no independent photographers. Where only the state releases information. Is that what you want? That is what you will have if you convict the media.”

“Have you reached a verdict?” Bobby asked.

“Yes, we have, Your Honor,” Calvin Dee answered. The entire jury stood. They had deliberated and written the verdict together. “On the first four charges—collusion, misrepresentation, conspiracy, and malicious skewing of information—though we find that the evidence presented substantiates each point, and that many myths do exist, we find the charges to be too sweeping, and the prosecution’s argument of media causation to be unsubstantiated. The media are therefore found to be not guilty. On the fifth charge—incompetence to fully and accurately inform our society—we find the media guilty as charged. Further, Your Honor, we, the jury of High Meadow, recommend that the media, because of their greed and foolishness, be sentenced to be the information branch of a polarized, overly yet poorly informed, disintegrating society which will continue to make mistakes in its decisions based on skewed information, will continue to act based on ethno- and temporocentrically limited stories, will continue to assess, re-act, and follow blind paths based on erroneous data the media feed this society.”