Rights To Journalism During Armed Conflict In The 20th Century

The right to journalists during armed conflicts is a very relevant issue not only in the present times but an issue right from the 20th century. Journalists are facing a lot of problems during the armed conflicts between countries. Even though under the Sub Commission on the Promotion and Protection of human rights, communication is a main sub division, enough rights are not given to the people in the communication field; the journalists.
North Korea is a nation which gives right to the press and media. But North Korea has certain restrictions to this. The country does not allow foreign media to enter to the state for any kind of news coverage, unless a special sanction is given. So Armed Conflicts are captured by the local media in North Korea.
It rightly proves that giving right to journalists is a wrong matter in the view of North Korea because the journalists may give a wrong idea to the people about wars also known popularly as yellow journalism. From Joseph Pulitzer in the “New York World” and William Randolph in “New York Journal”, this practise of yellow journalism and journalistic scandals are being followed until today.
. They risk their lives for getting the irrelevant news about armed conflict. Journalism is something that should be used to report the relevant news such as new plans started by the government to benefit the country, the new ideas for the upbringing of the nation as said by the ruler, to state a few. For example, if we take the case of Anna Politkovaskaya, a Russian journalist and human right activist was murdered for reporting against communism of Putin in Russia. She is just one example to the problem of giving right to journalists in armed conflict zones. North Korea has taken great measures to control this. All the news about any matter, in this case the armed conflicts, is first censored by the government. By this practise, there will be no wrong news spread across the world about the wars or any matter in North
In late January from 1968, the TET offensive had marked a major turning point in the media coverage of the war. Even though the offensive was a major failure was a massive failure for North Vietnam, what the media told was a contrasting story. While focusing on a few unfavourable combat actions such as the battle of hue or the Viet’s Cong attack on the U.S embassy, the media missed the winning story of the war. As a consequence, the public misled by the war found the offensive to be a triumph for the communists and quickly changed their opinions against the war.
After the TET offensive, the predominant coverage of the war became predominantly negative. Images of both civilian and military casualties were continuously televised. The amount of victory stories televised by the journalists decreased from 62 % to 44% after the TET. Adding top this many important pictures of the war such as The Execution of the Vietcong Guerrilla and The Napalm Girl exerted a negative influence on the public feeling. As the became more and more uglier on the screen, its public support also declined