Ted_Perry's Blog

Ted,

Thanks for honoring a great man.... But don't gloss over the facts— He was a journalist first. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his vangard journalism from Vietnam during the early 60s. From his first dispatches there was an unquenchable desire to report what he believed was the truth. He went to Vietnam believing the war was a good war and when he saw the truth, he reported what he saw.

In a speech last year, he compared how he was attacked for his reporting, called unpatriotic, un-American, soft on communism -- different period -- to how unembedded journalists today have been attacked for reporting on Iraq, for reporting what they see.

Of course, he went on to become a figure who wrote about sports, about the media. But even his books, The Best and the Brightest and The Making of a Quagmire on foreign policy under Kennedy and Johnson were critical works that spoke truth to power like nothing seen on mainstream news today.

Wars have so often tested journalists and tested their ability to be courageous. David Halberstam was not a particularly political person but he was a great reporter. You might learn more from his journalistic examples than his sports books.