This ignorant.
As is pointed out in comments, it’s probably partly a generational thing. The generation that fought that war is dying and almost gone. But it’s also a consequence of how awful the teaching of history is in the public school system and universities.
And these are the people who are supposed to be informing the rest of us? No wonder Obama was elected.
I’m a New Zealander (in NZ). I recognized the photo, and even got the right island. But then I was born only 17 years after those events and we’re now 65 years after them.
But I have to say I don’t think being able to name a particular island or recognize any particular photo is especially important. I’d be far more sympathetic towards someone who had, say, read Hayek (or even watched John Stossel!) and didn’t know the photo than to the reverse.
Journalists don’t know ANYTHING. I have worked at four papers and known a dozen or so reporters and editors in my life. Most of them are startlingly ignorant. They don’t even know proper grammar or spelling, which are the basic tools of their trade.
This also makes journalists appallingly gullible. They love to project a seen-it-all, cynical facade, but are childishly eager to jump on anything which is “secret” or “covered up.”
Now the hard question: Is this the first photo or the second photo taken of the flag raising? For extra credit: Does anyone know why there are two photos?
Course really – how is one to judge the meaning of such a photo without knowing the political affiliation of the solders? Other then of course seeing it as a obvious example of US imperialism.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They took a secound photo with a bigger flag for PR pourposes.
I will bet that all those journalists had great self-esteem though…
All I know for sure is that the first photo was taken before the movie cameras got there.
I’ll be 51 in a couple of weeks and this strikes home…
At 55 I’m watching the older generation die off and the younger one die intellectually. Sad. #7 larry on 2010-03-15 21:24
Every once in a while I see an on camera newscaster display such ignorance. I put it down to bad work ethic. They’re not even embarrassed by such.
On another tangent:
Runaway Prius story more fiction than fact
By Michael Fumento, Canwest News Service
Sounds like the newsies would rather bash Toyota than check facts.
I guess I have to call a bit of BS on that one – despite my belief that most members of the journalistic profession are woefully self-involved and have the historical awareness of lint.
I mean, I can I identify this photo:
Hindenberg in Lakehurst, N.J.
and I was born 21 years after it was taken. True, I’m not a journalist, but I assume most journalists could, too.
Which is not to deny the main point of the article, which is (I think) that the historical markers of one generation don’t have the same resonance for the next generation.
(The flag flying at Iwo is Japanese, now, by the way. See P.J. O’Rourke’s neat article about being given the privilege to visit the island.)
I think the point though is that these pictures helped make journalism what it is today.
Jay-eeezus! That’s not just historical ignorance it’s cultural ignorance too. E.D Hirsch must have been talking about these journalist idiots in his book, when quoting, Benjamin Stein who noted in a Washington Post story, in his work with Los Angeles focus groups made up of high school and college students,
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“…none could place the date of the Declaration of Independence. I could not find one single student in either high school or college who could tell me the years when World War II was fought. Nor have I found one who could tell me the years when World War I was fought. Nor could I find one who knew when the Civil War was fought…”
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Sad. But true. It stands to reason, if they don’t know something occurred, they sure as hell won’t recognize a picture of the event.
I didn’t appreciate history in grade school. I feel woefully uneducated. But I did know about the two flags of Iwo Jima.
The intellectual arrogance that most reporters greet the world with is for the mot part unearned. A great example of that is the late Peter Jennings. To all the world, he was a very urbane, highly educated man who’s condensation towards anyone he interviewed (and to his audience) seemed almost justified. The problem is, he never spent any real time in college and was only able to get a broadcasting job at the CBC because his dad worked there. His entire persona was based on a lie.
Now the hard question: Is this the first photo or the second photo taken of the flag raising? For extra credit: Does anyone know why there are two photos?
There were actually two separate flag raisings on Iwo Jima. The first flag was relatively small, so some senior officer ordered a larger flag raised. IIRC, the famous photo and movie were shot with the second flag raising.
Six men (5 Marines and one Navy Corpsman) raised that second flag. They were Sgt Michael Strank, Cpl Harlon Block, PFC Franklin Sousley, PFC Rene Gagnon, PFC Ira Hayes, PM2 John Bradley.
Three of them died on Iwo Jima.
I never thought of myself as “appreciating” history, nor considering it my favorite subject in school, but I sure must have found it interesting because I not only learned it back then, I’ve never really lost interest in it.
My wife, on the other hand, freely admits that she never paid attention to history when she was in school, and she definitely feels she missed out as a result — especially when she sees something on the news and gets all outraged, and I point out that stuff like that has been happening since ancient Athens.
I would figure out it was from late in the Pacific campaign even if I did not know beforehand where it was taken. I mean, those cammo covers in the helmets? Never saw it in the European campaign movies.
I’m sorry, I think Andy Pasztor of the WSJ is all the evidence I need to decide how ignorant journalists are 🙂