From Booklist
Steinman went to Saigon as NBC news bureau chief in April 1966 before the significance of the Vietnam War was clearly evident. It was the first war to be reported by television at a time when there was less government--and network--interference in war reporting. It was also a time before technology enabled the fast and constant relay of images and news from around the world. Steinman recalls the struggles he and his staff of young, multinational correspondents faced: learning how to report a war from the front lines, how to get past the canned news offered by the government, and how to get undeveloped film shipped out of Saigon. He recalls the hardships of living in a war-torn nation and the friendships that helped advance news gathering and personal survival. Steinman also recalls his courtship of a young Vietnamese coworker whom he later married. This is an intense look behind the scenes at how television reported on the growing conflict in Vietnam and how those images influenced American public opinion of the war. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Product Description
This volume recounts Ron Steinman's tenure as head of the NBC News Bureau in Saigon from April 1966 until July 1968. This was a time during the Vietnam conflict that included the major American buildup and the Tet Offensive of 1968 and saw much of America turn from support for the war to opposition. This book is a behind-the-scenes look at how the Vietnam conflict influenced young journalists, and how their coverage of the war influenced the American public. It looks at how television journalists learned to report war in a distinctly new way, through the eye of a camera on the front lines, in the countryside, in cities, towns, and villages. The experience of living-room war was new, and its effects are still being felt today. The author also reveals glimpses into his personal life, his courtship of Josephine Tu Ngoc Suong, a young Vietnamese woman who was seriously wounded and near death in 1967. After her recovery she and Steinman were married and had three children together. And he tells the story of his brother-in-law, a prisoner in a Communist re-education camp after the war, to whom he tried to smuggle money and medicine during a visit in 1985.
