My Intro to Part 1 of Robert Elegant's Essay

Robert Elegant was a foreign correspondent in Asia during most of his career. Being that Viet Nam was the first war in which the mass media played a huge role, most notably with television, Elegant found himself stuck between a rock and a hard place. He was in Viet Nam to cover a war that was very confusing and secretive to many Americans, but he soon found that the story the media was telling, versus the one actually happening, differed greatly.

How to Lose a War: Reflections of a War Correspondent (August 1981 edition of Encounter, pp. 73-90, is his story mostly on the causes of poor journalistic practices and their results in covering a war which was part Cold War battlefield, part Civil War.

Due to the enormity of context, I am transcribing and posting his essay in parts. The proceding post is Part 1.

The purpose of transcribing this essay is to shed some light on an idealogical media, by an insider, that are currently being repeated by journalists of all stripes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I will offer my conclusions after the article is printed in its entirety. I am turning off the comments in the actual article, as I want the article to be pure refernce material, but feel free to discuss here. Additionally, I'm not a typist, or an editor, so I'd be grateful if you'd let me know of any typos that you see.