Presented by VTIFF
Venue Host: Main Street Landing
Written & Directed by Thomas Herman
USA | 2018 | Documentary | 96 mins
Director Herman in attendance for Q&A with Jay Craven and for a meet-and-greet at the Lake Lobby reception before the screening. Reception 6:30 – 7:30, pizzas from Pizzeria Verita, cash bar from Shelburne Vineyard and Woodchuck Cider
Note: Come at 5pm for the first film of the evening: All The Wild Horses, have a pizza and a drink at the reception while talking to the filmmakers and stay for Dateline-Saigon. Make an evening of it.
Herman spent twelve years researching, filming, and interviewing over 50 writers, photojournalists, radio and television correspondents, government officials, historians, and others for this project. “The film is about a group of journalists who risked their lives to bring back a story no one wanted revealed.” Telling the truth about what was happening in Vietnam, Herman says, illustrated a shift away from traditional media support of any US war effort. “It was a revolution in attitude and a revolution in how news was distributed and how news was consumed.” David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, Malcolm Browne, Peter Arnett, and Horst Faas — were among the first to report that the story on the ground in Vietnam was vastly different than that being reported by the government in Washington. They were among the first skeptics. They were all young, unknown, and relatively inexperienced when they arrived in Vietnam in 1961 and 1962, but were all to become legends
The film illuminates the difficulties of reporting war by focusing on America’s most important and controversial case study: Vietnam, the war that established many of the ground rules for coverage of wars that followed and ignited an antagonism between the media and the military that unfortunately endures. The parallels to the challenges journalists face in reporting today’s conflicts — and the consequences of not getting the story out — will become disturbingly obvious to the viewer.
Dateline-Saigon is geared to generations born after the Vietnam War as well as to the generation that lived through it but never knew the personal sacrifices made to report the truth — a struggle today’s reporters continue to face. The “Saigon Boys” have much to teach us about reporting the truth in the face of government resistance.