Media Had Wide Access in Vietnam War

[cal04]

The news media's ability to cover the Vietnam War without censorship was unlike anything that has been seen since, correspondents who covered that conflict for The Associated Press said during a reunion.

``We had relationships with officers and generals that are totally foreign to reporters trying to cover Iraq today, absolutely in a fantasy world,'' said Peter Arnett, who spent 13 years in Vietnam for the news cooperative from 1962 to 1975.

``The military was remarkable in Vietnam - they not only didn't try to censor us, they made every accommodation to us,'' said Richard Pyle, who was AP's bureau chief in Saigon from 1970-1973. ``There's never been a situation quite like that anywhere.''

(snip)
``In Vietnam, anybody that you could get hold of would generally talk to you,'' she said after the panel discussion. ``I don't think that in our lifetimes we will ever see that kind of freedom again.''( Edith Lederer)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5914196,00.html

[Briar]

1. It's pretty obvious

that what the governments have taken from Vietnam is an absolute determination not to allow journalists such freedom of access again.