Halls Johannsen, Robert W. To Term Paper

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They both fought and wrote, with little concern about journalistic objectivity, or even what 'journalism' was. (13)

Notions of American racial superiority were frequently played up in the press, as perhaps was understandable given the racial turmoil of the nation at the time, and also because of the biased nature of the reporting, written as it was by soldiers fighting for their lives. "It was not the only time that Mexicans were compared unfavorably with slaves in the American South," notes the author. The correspondents sneeringly wrote that even American slaves were better than these foreign fighting powers. (26)

Because of the narrative nature of the journalism, and its biased quality, this war had to have a 'bad guy' and a 'good guy,' and the guises assigned by the Mexicans and the Americans respectively, the correspondence had a quality, Johannsen suggests of a wild west show, and essentially created the conditions of willingness for the war, far more than any real political need. Little attention was given to the complexities of the conflict in the correspondence. Rather, all of the conflict was narrated through the lenses of Manifest Destiny.

The author's focus upon the press more than the fighting makes the book particularly interesting and relevant to a reader who is not a specialist in the period he is narrating. After all, long after the territories being fought over have become an accepted part of the United States, the United States still deals with the question of what makes good journalism, and especially how to report the complexities of foreign conflicts. How loyal must one be to the fighting men (and now women) abroad -- does one take one's status as an American into consideration, or simply relate the facts when one is a journalist. This book provides a persuasive case that partisanship can be damaging to the truth in journalism.

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The book is a powerful history of the American press and is valorization of the American citizen-soldier. This common solider became a symbol of American democracy, "perhaps one of the foremost symbols of the Mexican War itself. Any writer or speaker, it was said, who even hinted disparagement of the volunteers ' achievements would be hissed down from any lecture hall. (24) But the assumption of the inherent goodness of American soldiers was not inherent from the inception of the republic, suggests the author but a particular ideological product, the historian says, of this particular conflict.

Before, the U.S. wished to avoid foreign entanglements. But now, the soldier against the Mexican hordes assumed the burden of upholding the honor of the enlightened nation of America, which embodied "moderation, and fraternal beneficence" (26) This linked the nation's soldiers with the "best days of' Knighthood." (26)

When one critic of the war, overwhelmed by the reports of' American "chivalry " in Mexico, called the U.S. un-Christian as to the way the war was being fought, he was accused of being un-American and un-Godly, rather than merely disagreeing in a foolish fashion with American policy. American-ness became synonymous with agreeing not only with American expansionism, but also the moral value of such expansionism as a war correspondent wrote, "our treatment of' the Mexican people... entitles our country to claim the foremost rank in modern civilization," to a man (26)

Readers searching for a detailed history of the conflict may wish to look elsewhere, as the author himself has a particular agenda he is advancing over the course of the book, much like the correspondents he is criticizing. However the book provides an important historical context to the….....

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