Development of Female Journalists in Vietnam War

Development of Female Journalists in the Vietnam War

Though women were among the journalism field before the Vietnam War and had previous experiences reporting wars, the Vietnam War was the first opportunity that they were given full access to reporting on a war. This meaning, they were never the lead reporters or left to do the top stories on their own for past wars. This changed as the Vietnam War began, but this did not come too easily. 

The women reporters were forced to create the Women’s Movement and take part in the Civil Rights Movement of 1964 in order to reach this place of equal rights in reporting for the wars. At the start of them fighting to report for the Vietnam war, women were struggling to find corporations that would hire them to do stories. To get past this stigma of women reporting on the wars, they would use their own funds to fly to new destinations and prove their worth doing interviews and reports from the destinations other journals were doing in hopes their story was better than the “professional journalist” sent to do it. After this, the next step was for women to begin pressuring the journals and war organizations to give them this freedom to write and be published the way men were, which clearly paid off in the end as they were a key component for these reports and news. Women such as Elizabeth Becker, Frances Fitzgerald, Catherine Leroy, and so many others reported on the many different aspects of the Vietnam war, but like the other female journalists, they had a few different areas of the war that they preferred to focus on. Many felt that the male reporters focused mostly on the reports of only the direct war events (the physical fights and the soldiers) as opposed to the effects that the war was having on the Vietnamese people and society as a whole. This was important to them because these were the details they felt people would want to hear about. Were they okay? How were they handling it? What short term and long term effects was the Vietnam war having on individuals and families? People had so many questions about their society that the women knew this was a story that needed to be told and it could not get overlooked any longer by the men. 

As the war continued on, the news organizations realized the talent of these female reporters and dispatched them more and more. They knew that if they were going to get the best story from off- base the women were the journalists that would get the most story- worthy news. There were many examples of stories these women were able to get fully immersed in and bring back to their organization with a bigger reaction than what could have been expected. Because of this, many women reporters received the highest honor awards at the time. This included but was not limited to the Pulitzer Prize, the Polk Award and Overseas Press Club awards. 

So though female journalists during the Vietnam War had to fight their hardest to be on top after years of neglect and doubt, that is exactly where they ended up and they continued to prove themselves as time went on. 

Link: 

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presenters response blog

In Response to The American Society of Magazine Editors

Listening to other groups present is always extremely beneficial to my learning. From “The American Society of Magazine Editors” group, I learned so much more than I could have expected within the short 5 minute presentation. It was engaging, educational, and well planned- out. In addition the graphics pulled me in and made me realize I wanted to do further research on my own. 

The American Society of Magazine Editors is an amazing group that was started in 1963 who gives awards and recognitions for fiction writers who have shown all around excellence in publishing their fiction writings whether published in a magazine or on a website. In addition, this is important because there is a direct tie between fiction writing and magazine journalism today thanks to ASME. 

The mission of The American Society of Magazine Editors is to stand up for and advocate for first amendment issues while being the sole networking firm for editors and additional employees in the industry. Within the company, there are interesting/ educational trainings in addition to the awards given to a limited number of writers and editors. This is said to be a very impressive part of their company and the trainings are in-depth and give a great deal of advice to upcoming writers and editors.

Another attachment of the ASME is what they call ASME Next. This is a leading organization for print and digital journalists who are just beginning their careers. This opportunity is led by senior- journalists and in addition entails awards called the ASME Next Awards for journalists under the age of 30. ASME has also sponsored The Magazine Internship program for over 50 years which is a 10- week program for incoming college seniors. This opportunity alone has brought in over 2,000 interns and from that number brought in 500 employed members. 

The American Society of Magazine Editors is overall, an organization that has done so much for the journalism community and will continue to do so in the future. It is successful and spreads its success among all of those who are fortunate enough to work with them.

https://www.asme.media

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ejhBVyXJxpFz7NmytpWZbcHL2G28VnA1w9d25ZdA97E/edit#slide=id.g111b98600bb_0_53

The Boston News-Letter

Boston News-Letter

Print journalism has come such a long way from where it used to be. Whether it was carrier pigeons or hand-working typewriters, the news world was shockingly different back in the 18-1900’s than it is now. Today, modern technology makes it possible for thousands of newspapers, magazines, and journals to share news across the entire world within minutes of an event occurring, whereas back in the day it would take weeks to hear about a story. Though this went on for quite a while there was one newsletter that was the start of a revolutionary change in the media world. This was a paper that was releasing foreign news for people to hear about within a week of the event happening, and it was the only paper to stay successful as long as it did. This was The Boston News-Letter. 

The Boston News-Letter was not the first ever newspaper, as that was called “Publick Occurrences”, but this paper was shut down immediately after the first publication by the British which was to be expected. The Boston News-Letter was the first ever successful newsletter, though, that did the work this paper showed it was capable of without getting immediately taken away by the British. It is interesting to note that this paper was originally not intended to be a newspaper at all, it was a way of communication between colonists until they came to the realization that the information that Campbell  was able to spread was something that they actually did need to have published for everyone to be up-to-date on. The first issue of the newsletter was published on April 24, 1704 byJohn Campbell who was the first editor and John Green who was the first to print (and who was eventually moved to being the editor after Campbell passed away years later). Each week it came out covering monday-monday news with a blank last page for people to leave their feedback on for the government. This paper also covered foreign news as well which was something no one else had been successful in to this point. People were able to learn about what was going on all over the world as opposed to hearing through the grapevine after weeks or even months of what may be occurring, and this was insanity to everyone. Some of the big stories the paper was able to cover in its 72 years of print included: Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and the most famous of all, Blackbeard the pirates head-to-head fight. This was a very impressive 72 years and after the British got this paper shut down like all of the others of its time, there was a new reign of papers that were able to build on the world that The Boston News-Letter had opened up. It was no longer a slow- paced world. Mass media was finally something of the present and something that would build bigger and bigger into the future.