Dateline-Saigon: Documentary Film Screening, Discussion, and Reception

Veterans Day Event: Dateline-Saigon film screening and discussion with producer/director Tom Herman and History Prof. Edward Miller, Founding Director, Dartmouth Vietnam Project.

November 7, 2017
6:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Location
Loew Auditorium, Black Family Visual Arts Center
Sponsored by
Rockefeller Center
Audience
Public
More information
Joanne Needham
603-646-2207

Dateline-Saigon is the story of five young journalists whose courageous reporting during the early years of the Vietnam War in the face of fierce opposition — and worse — from government is uncannily relevant to challenges journalists face today. Narrated by Sam Waterston, Dateline-Saigon has all the drama and high stakes of All the President’s Men and the tragedy and romance of The Quiet American.

Dateline-Saigon is produced and directed by Boston-based filmmaker, Thomas D. Herman, a Co-Producer of the Emmy-award winning feature film “Live From Baghdad” starring Michael Keaton and Helena Bonham-Carter. 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.” But after the Vietnam War journalists never again gained the access they had there. “Reporters were shut out of every war since Vietnam,” CBS newsman Morley Safer says in the film.

Herman’s interest in the story began after reading David Halberstam’s seminal book, The Best and the Brightest. “I had always been curious about the heated controversy surrounding his reporting and that of others critical of the war. Was their reporting fair? Were these reporters responsible for our “losing” the war? I was a CNN field producer in Vietnam during the 25th anniversary of the end of the war in 2000. While there, I met a number of men and women who had covered the war, some still working reporters, some back in Saigon for a journalists reunion. The stories I heard on that trip of how the war was reported were dramatic and moving, and the reporters themselves were compelling and interesting characters. These reporters wrote the first draft of one of the most important and controversial chapters in American history. The stories behind that first draft are fascinating and largely unknown. It is also an exciting adventure story, a story of both personal and national coming of age and loss of innocence.”

Dartmouth is proud to commemorate Veterans Day with a series of events and programs.  To view the full schedule visit www.dartmouth.edu/veterans

Location
Loew Auditorium, Black Family Visual Arts Center
Sponsored by
Rockefeller Center
Audience
Public
More information
Joanne Needham
603-646-2207