Broadcast journalism has been used throughout recent history to shape popular opinion about how governments deal with international issues. If we look at major historical events related to American foreign policy such as the Vietnam war, the Persian Gulf War, the war in the former Yugoslavia, or the events of September 11, 2001 and it's aftermath, they can hardly be imagined without the television images carried into American (and other) homes. The American media giant has a definite impact on what Americans understand about world events and how the US government responds to them. How has this so called "free press" been manipulated in the last three decades of world history? Wars and political movements through out developing nations have been played out on the stage of living room televisions and have held Americans and others as a captive audience. Television is able to rivet people to their televisions for up-to-date live coverage with an unquenchable thirst. The need to know is fed with the presses ideals of "the public has the right to know". Are people manipulated by the news media? One has to wonder if the political gains of the world leaders are connected to their reactions to world events, or do world events control the policy makers. Edward Bickham former special advisor to the British foreign secretary says, "The power of television in foreign policy is a mixed blessing. As a medium it plays too much to the heart and too little to the head. It presents powerful emotive images, which conjure strong reactions...Anecdotes about individual suffering make compelling television, but they rarely form a good basis to make policy."
             Wars on television have been the main topic of a great deal of compelling news coverage. At the time of the Korean War the television industry was still in its infancy stage, therefore not much material was given to the public through this medium. Many pe...