used to provide a realistic setting.
             Secondly, the film gives an accurate account of the methods and goals of Vietnam War journalists. In the film, the main character, Joker, is assigned to work for the war paper "Stars and Stripes." In the scenes concerning the paper there is much discussion about what the journalists have to set their goals for, that is providing stories that make the Americans look good. "Stars and Stripes" was a real newspaper during the Vietnam War and there is evidence that journalists were pressured by their advisors to only produce stories that were pro-American, and in some cases they were asked to alter the records in order to achieve this. Joseph E. MacDonald, a journalist for "Stars and Stripes", gives one account during 1969, in which he describes his work as complete bullshit. He states that on one occasion, his chief advisor forced him to decrease an American body count from twenty to four soldiers, in order to provide a
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