Media Effects of the Vietnam War War is truly a horrible event that unfortunately occurs frequently in our world. There are a number of ethical questions surrounding war, such as: How much should citizens know about fighting? When it comes to reporting the news, the network's goal is to report it first. The benefit of this is that people will turn to them first when it comes to telling stories. However, if news is delivered quickly and inaccurately, this can be harmful to society. War is a very serious event and should not be taken lightly. Therefore, journalists must ensure that the facts are correct and impartial. In both the Vietnam War and the current war we see journalists going to extreme measures to be the first to report information that may have been inaccurate. There was certainly no shortage of information to report when it came to the Vietnam War. Unfortunately some of this information was highly inaccurate. Like the event that started the war. The Battle of Tonkin was proven false as reported by a Japanese Newswire in July 1984. In the bay it was reported outside Vietnam that the North Vietnamese had sunk an American ship killing only two soldiers. The American people found out about this and were outraged, and Congress gave President Lyndon B. Johnson a blank check to wage the war. It was later discovered that the tragedy had never happened. News networks reported this event and the American government confirmed the false event and the war began, as the newswire reports. If this lie had never been told, it is likely that the war would never have started. An Asian news source early on reported the Gulf of Tonkin as an illusion (Japanese Newswire, Lexis Nexis), this turned out to be true, but what Americans at the time would have believed Asian News Networks. This can easily be linked to the current war in Iraq. To start the war, the administration claimed the existence of weapons of mass destruction that could potentially harm us. If the American media were not allowed into these war situations, the government could simply make up another lie and point out the old weapons found in Iraq and there would be no evidence to prove that these weapons are old..