ABSTRACT
Roberts Field, Liberia—This place feels like wartime Vietnam, the humid air ripened by the rotting smell from thick jungle that curls over the edges of the airstrip, the odor spiced with acrid exhaust fumes belched by arriving US Air Force C-130 Troop transports. Vietnam was a defining moment for American journalism because a new generation of war correspondents severed the accommodating relationship their predecessors had forged with the military in two world wars, and instead demanded accountability. Attempts by officials to restrict the flow of negative news from Vietnam were equally as difficult on the battlefield when American combat troops arrived as they were in the streets of Saigon when the Buddhists rioted. The American soldiers did not look upon the press as a fifth column of spies. The controversy over coverage of the Vietnam war also began to put one generation of reporters against the other. Vietnam was the excuse the Pentagon used to justify excessive media management in military actions against Grenada, Panama and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
