By Vilma Novak

PERTH AMBOY – What is the most powerful force in society? More powerful than the president or Congress?

It’s the news media according to Charles Wiley, international speaker and journalist who was Kearny Cottage Historical Association’s guest speaker on Sunday, September 29.

Journalist Charles Wiley, Executive Director of the National Committee for Responsible Patriotism, spoke at Kearny Cottage on Sept. 29

Why is the media such a powerful force? It’s because news media decides what you think about, talk about and which problems will be addressed. When news media decides to spotlight a problem that’s when politicians address it.

How does this happen? There are two kinds of journalism, objective journalism that reports the news in order to inform, they gather news and give you both sides of the story they keep their opinion out of the mix. Then there is advocacy journalism designed to influence you. There are huge numbers of advocacy journalists particularly when you go up the ladder. The way they influence is not to lie but to not report the whole story, they change the story by leaving things out . For instance, the coverage of the home front during the Viet Nam War was distorted in that way.

There were three things the advocacy journalists wanted you to think:

• The people turned their backs on the troops.

• Antiwar demonstrations were common everywhere in the country.

• There was no parade to welcome the troops home.

Ask yourself, did you know of anyone who, or did you, disrespect the troops? There were small cliques carrying the enemy flag but that there was widespread disrespect shown to the troops was utter nonsense however prevalently reported, some of it was even believed by the troops.

When the troops returned from Viet Nam they came back in small groups on commercial flights to a few airports particularly Los Angeles, San Francisco or Washington/Tacoma where there were some protestors carrying signs and harassing them. They were mostly the same people at each location though it was reported as being widespread. The news media exaggerated this by giving these groups a lot of attention.

The anti-troop mentality was the overearching message though the largest demonstrations were in favor of the troops. The third largest parade in America was held in support of the troops it lasted eight hours and fifty minutes; a quarter million people were in attendance. It was held on May 13, 1967 on 5th Avenue in New York City. Carpenters Unions, Fire Fighters, Iron Workers, Teamsters were all out to support the troops. The impetus of this was that a few weeks earlier someone burnt the American flag and people started the movement to resist the anti-troop anti- American mentality. This wasn’t covered by the news media. At that time there was three networks and not one covered this parade and they neglected to cover parade after parade they just didn’t write the whole story.

In October of 1967 there was a March on Washington which was planned for months, where the organizers wanted to exorcize and levitate the Pentagon. During the same weekend, as a part of Operation Gratitude, there were demonstrations all across the country in support of the troops. From Hawaii, Alaska to Puerto Rico 75 cities across the nation had demonstrations supporting the troops, there were five separate parades, the longest parade in the history of New Jersey was held in Newark. There was a vigil in the Battery area of New York City. Most of the vehicles on the roads had their lights on and displayed American flags in support of the troops.

What was the coverage like? Newsweek had two pages with six pictures and two sentences about Operation Gratitude. Time Magazine placed the antiwar protest on their front cover and inside there was nine- pages of coverage; contrast that with only 31 words covering Operation Gratitude in the same article.

The American Legion would hold 100’s of Loyalty Day parades. Why don’t you know this? Media didn’t inform and the focus of the antiwar movement became the overarching belief about the history of this era.

Media lost the war for the USA. Lyndon Johnson watched news about the war every night on television and based his strategy on it rather than listening to his advisors.

Last point: There was no parade to welcome home the troops.

On March 31, 1973 the war ended and in Time Square 1000 servicemen, Viet Nam Vets, marched for 2 miles through Times Square, a grandstand was set up for them at Central Park West. While the Veterans were on the grandstand over 150,000 people marched passed them; there were over 100 brass bands in the parade. It was the greatest homecoming parade ever yet there was no coverage by NBC, CBS or ABC. CBS had offices four blocks away and NBC two blocks away; they could have covered the parade from their building but the parade was never mentioned by them.

Everyone was welcomed to join in the parade no matter their position on the war the point was to support the troops. Anti-war protestors did attend and word got to the soldiers on the grandstand, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. There was concern that there would be a riot when protestors confronted the veterans. When the protestors arrived at the grandstand a commander from each branch of the military ordered “Company Attention” “Company About Face” and the vets turned their backs on the protestors, the protestors chanted and sat down on the street, the police told the protestors to move on. Of course we welcomed our soldiers home that’s the kind of people most of us are. There were spontaneous displays of warmth and appreciation, what an unusual parade where the military watched civilians march by.

The average person who was against the war was not against the troops. It was a small faction who carried the flag of the enemy, like Jane Fonda, who years later said she was not against the troops just against the war but at the time she said the troops should all be arrested for war crimes.

When one starts looking at the degree of news media distortion one must question what can be believed and not take anything at face value.

Mr. Wiley’s organization, National Committee for Responsible Patriotism, (NCRP), was formed in 1967 to organize the Operation Gratitude parade and events. Their website is NCRP.US. where you can see pictures and film clips of the parades. This is a new site and more will be added to it as it evolves.