British Expatriate Network

I have often wondered how our world would have turned out if we had the news media and news technology available during past conflicts and also throw in today’s mentality.
Today people tend not to fully read or see news. We have a sound bite mentality. We want it short and sweet and from that we build an opinion whether the facts are wrong or right. We also just accept these facts without looking at other news sources. After all each “said” news source has their own spin on things, their own propaganda to spill.

So here’s my take on modern news in WW2.

I hand you over to Chris Smith at our news desk. Chris, over to you.

Chris “ today allied forces have gained a foot hold on continental Europe again. Now over to our embedded reporter with 101st Essex regiment somewhere in France.


Oh my word, how can I describe this scene. Men, young and old charging a well dug in definite enemy, just being cut down by the thousands. It’s horrific, a mass slaughter. They say that over 15,000 men have been killed on this beach in the last 3 hours.
Body parts laying around me of what used to be whole people. Men with loved ones, just left laying where they feel. It’s horrific.


Over to our Man in Dresden. The carnage and killing of the innocent is hard to put into words, women, children and old men buried alive as bombs drop from the sky. The fires
Oh god the fires, like the pities from hell. Ohh god, no a child just run past me. His skin on fire peeling from his body. How can we do this. How can we do this to another innocent human?????


Cut cut cut . Now to our report on the Russian Front. Ohhhhh my eyes, pan the camera to the left thousands and thousands of bodies left laying to rot, crows pecking at their bodies, feeding on them. It’s a horrific site. That’s not all. We also spent a day in a Russian town not to far from here. Role the footage. Its strange there are no dogs barking or the usual news one would expect, you ask your self why. Then the answer comes clear when you see walking skeletons . These people live on a diet of rat, they have eaten all their pets. We need to get aid here now we need to help these people.


I guess if we had the media now back then we would want to pull troops back etc etc. We have to put it into prospective to what we have today. Seems that a number of troops have been killed turns the public. Not to even add innocent women and children.

Seems with just live in a shock, sound bite world now. From that we just jump to form an opinion, that is not really based on the long term facts or understanding.

Hope another good talking point worth discussing?

This doesn't translate, Goose. It was a different time and a different culture. In those days, most people "knew their place", they accepted the news they were given, after it had been carefully picked out by the government. The decisions were made by "Our betters". WW2 opened the eyes of many of the men who fought in the war and they asked questions that they wouldn't have asked before. That was a big step in improving the lot of and the involvment of the middle and working classes.

London, you have just answered part of the question in an opening statement. Back then they accepted the news, never questioned.That we believed everything we were feed.

Saying that I guess if we would have been ok with hitler invading various countries. Killing millions of people in gas chambers etc etc. Saying all that we would have been ok will thousands of allied troops being cut down on D day or ww1 cuz we did not know better.

The world has not changed the same horrors are still there, the same grab for power and survival still there. back then it came a month or so latter, less graphic.
Now its in your face and shows common folk what war is all about.

Its not death of glory, its horrific in whatever form it takes. people die, civies ,military a like there is no demarcation lines a battle zone. Kill or be killed

Actually, we are not seeing it fully. the news is delivered by commercial outfits who don't want to piss the customers off, or they are networks the the government can influence. A correspondant, on NPR said she watched the Arab networks; they had TV teams teams at the sharp end and were showing the mangled bodies being extracted from the bombed buildings. Why aren't we shown this? because the networks are cowards.

The reporter said that the Arab countries see these pictures from the sharp end with the result that Hizbollah, which was unpopular for snatching the Israelis, is now getting support from across the Muslim world.

Listen to Debbie Amos

both sides play propaganda game. One side died bodies of kids laying around, the other gallant soldiers fighting for their country. As I have said before between the 2 lays the truth.

Its strange really, but when it's some conflict in say Africa, say Dalfur. It only gets maybe mention in passing. Why not care about those people??? after all they are being killed in their thousands.

The media in every get has a position from which they report. Plus you have locally held positions that people are shown in schools. If you listen to what history they are taught in something like history, its completely different from what we were taught.

Some news/media only wants to shock people and make people mad etc because they hold a strong position.

If we take what happened in Lebanon. Some news stations are gonna show babies died and all that type of stuff, cuz they want people to get mad, hoping to gain support one way or the other.

Isreal may say in a passing article that we bombed a house and killed some innocent people and say no more than that.

The truth lays between the 2. As to why it happened etc. Does not make things right, but innocent people do get killed, happenes every day in this world, we all know that.

With war or any armed conflict people die. No one wins in some respect. Like an earlier post. How do you deal with terrorists or any conflict.

Do yea stick them in the ring and let them kick the crap out of each other till one or other stays down?

Of course goose, in the US this would be third or fourth story on the evening news. In Boston the news is domionate right now by the collapse of part of the 'big dig' and the associate fall out (no pun intended).
even Iraq is an afterthought.