Reporters don’t speak this way anymore
January 2, 2008 — wickleFor Christmas, my wife have me the DVD of the documentary series “Victory at Sea.”
I have, by the way, the best wife in the world.
Just now, my little Eagle and I are watching the first episode of the series, which helps remind me of what reporting used to look like, and how documentaries can be made. In 1952, NBC wasn’t afraid of seeming biased when talking about World War II’s events, and narrator Leonard Graves delivers some wonderful lines about the reality being discussed.
The episode begins with a torpedo striking a ship.
“War has begun. Ships are sinking. Men are dying. It is September, 1939.”
One can hardly imagine CNN talking about the realities of war this way today.
“For Fascism to survive, it must kill … The time has come, and Hitler hurls his U-boats into the Atlantic to ravage and destroy. … To them falls the crucial mission of isolating Great Britain, of severing the arteries that feed her.”
An honest assessment of what Hitler had to do — described in terms that make Hitler and the entire movement he led sound like nothing better than a serial killer.
That’s a refreshing honesty that I’d love to hear from reporters in 2008. Instead of asinine conversations over whether the term “Islamofascist” is racist in nature, why not talk about the people who actually want to kill you and me? In the same way that most Christians don’t bomb abortion clinics or support those who do, not every Muslim is an Islamofascist. But Usama bin Laden and his ilk exist. Salmon Rushdie was marked for death. Let’s be honest about who and what is out there.
“Canada’s men and material enlist in the cause of decency and survival.”
Decency and survival, lined up against Fascism, which needs to kill. This is what the world really looked like in 1939. And in the early 1950’s, NBC wasn’t afraid to say so.
No right-minded person is opposed to decency or survival. NBC didn’t bother to present the Nazi side of the story. Every U-boat attack is described in terms of slaughter, cruelty, and brutality. The British and Canadians (at this point, I’m only a few minutes in) are described in terms of courage, valor, and righteousness.
It’s difficult to see that anyone watching this program might decide to take the Germans’ side.
Of course, NBC didn’t care about that. “Victory at Sea” is a celebration of the victory won by the Allies over the Axis in World War II. It wasn’t made to be an impartial description of events. It was made by a patriotic people to honor those who paid so much for us — defeating one of the most evil powers ever spawned on this world.
They don’t apologize for loving freedom, and they don’t apologize for being glad that Germany and Japan lost the war.
I wish we could hear reporters like that today — reporters who are willing to come out and say that it’s a good thing when violence is down in Iraq.
I’d like to hear more honesty, and more people talking like we’re all Americans.
I wouldn’t mind the open acknowledgment that terrorism is just plain wrong.
Reporters and makers of documentaries don’t talk this way anymore … but normal people do. And I think that the nation would be better off if we all spoke the same language.
January 2, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Our language has evolved in such a way that people do you use words to describe…we are so accustomed to pictures these days. I just posted a blog today on Words that we no longer use.
January 2, 2008 at 10:30 pm
One of the problems is that we have become way to PC and afraid of offending someone.