Is it for fun, ford venture . For adventure . Is it for the money . There are easier ways to make money than this. Like the earths plates when they snap like violent political change, and we see how the plates are fitting together. We do so the innocents have a voice. We do it because we have decided this is what we want to do with our slice of time on this planet. Event back in may. All of the available in our Field Library at www. Cspan. Org. Looking live at the iwo jima memorial just outside washington based on the photograph by Joseph Rosenthal in 1945. It was the inspiration for the iwo jima memorial, the marine corps memorial. Our focus on the townhall tonight is looking at the Media Coverage of war and we will be joined by a freelance videographer who has done a number of tours in iraq and afghanistan or cspan and other news organizations. We will show you some of his video and hear from him as well. We are taking your tweets and facebook comments. We are asking you, whered you get your Media Coverage, how do you follow war coverage . A couple of posts here, from jennifer. Says, well, not at all. It is hard to do when you are bought and paid for. Can says it is difficult to trust any media that is controlled and regulated i our corrupt government. Ever since i do not have cable. I watched news online. When i compare news documents, fox comes closer to telling the truth. Lets go to market in auburn, me, auburn,xcuse new york, independentsline. Mark, are you there . We lost them. Tracy is in indiana. Hi. Caller hello, how are you . Host doing fine. Caller when i think it comes to the Media Coverage of the war, it is like an angel and devil in the same bed. And the media is controlled by see the image. We do not know of half of the atrocities if it was not for the media. By the same token, the devil somebodyslant it to toss political point of view, and i also want to say that i to try to bring more r awareness into this, because my husband is a vet and he is not being treated well. I wish the media would show more of the aftermath, the happens to the vet after the war, after they have been out of the military for a while. What are their lives like. People would be shocked to see how they are treated. I think the media does an excellent job on the other try. It can do a slanted job. How do we know the difference . We do not know. You can just look and look at each channel and compare what they are saying and go from there, because eventually over hopefully you will get enough information to peace out what is really going on. I would be really nervous that they we do not have eda coverage of what is happening in the world as well as what is happening in america. From here is a call next alabama. Welcome. Walter, are you there . Youre on the air. I had a brother served in vietnam. Realize like going into a rack them of the women, and putting our boys over there and women and the people here were calling in criticizing. If they would take a gun and do Something Like that, it is different. If it were not for our armed forces, we would be controlled by other countries. Just like in the United States, these folk who rob banks or stuff and this that going on all the time. Aint none of us perfect, but i think our soldiers are doing a good job. Media,o you think the the usb then, does a good job of covering our efforts in afghanistan and before that to my iraq . Host i sure do. I sure do. Ler host go ahead. I am a former korean, vietnam veteran, and to make to me, the meeting is you have two efferent sides of the story from different angles. I tend to go to the foreign media to see what they think of us. At the same time, i think the lady talked about looking at what happens after the war. That is a big thing we need to look at closer. Again, there is a lot of money put into the war, but when it comes to the end the month there is a lot of money taken away from the war. Host you mean issues like Veterans Health and veterans issues, the media could do a better job . Ptsd has beenir, round for a long time. Was a good example of the vet that to help. Now the young guys coming back, they need to help and you can see it in their faces. I mean, today the president talking to the marines out at Camp Pendleton. A couple of young men behind him, at certain points during thatpeech, you could see they had emotions that were related to ptsd. Again, America Needs to wake up hoorah, hoorah, but the cost of war as high. Host the video you are seeing is the president s speech in Camp Pendleton in california. After that, the president will be delivering the comments at the event three weeks from now monday, august 20 eighth event, 50th anniversary of the march on washington. The white house announcing today, the president will be part of that progress. They said in part that 50 years to the day after Martin Luther king gave his famous i have a speech, president obama will take the same steps to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the march on washington. A brief Statement Today said onma will deliver remarks the ceremony at august 28. It is intended to commemorate the marsh on washington where 250,000 people gathered and heard kings rousing speech on racial quality. Look for coverage of that of course on cspan. This is casey on how democrats line, and the issue of Media Coverage of war, casey, where do you get your information . Online. I do not watch much cable news. Turks online. Caller i would like to see the Mainstream Media cover more of the whistleblowers. What the whistleblowers have to do instead of chastised them. What they actually do and how they help out the war effort and make the government more transparent. Host thanks for your call. Tennessee, next up, bill is on the independence line. Bill, are you there . Caller yes. Mediaery disgusted in the cbs. With cnn and abc and you cannot believe anything that becauset of their mouth make the changes according to what they want to have you see it. They do not use any direct reporting. It is all made up by them. They slant it in order to crew, andama and his i spent 8 1 2 years in the military, and i spent two years in pakistan, and at that time they would kill you and they would receive 300 for an and listed man and 500 for an officer. Host did you ever have an encounter with reporters in action where you were . Caller we have no reporters in there. Base, at a base, a spy where gary Francis Powers took off from. And we got nothing. I wouldin a compound say 40 acres, a huge 16foot brick and concrete wall. Host that was late 1950s, 1960s . 1960s. We caught hell for it because of where we were at. When the news came out, it was thatault, not anything would say that we are a spy class and more like a low it made us feel like second class citizens. Host thank you for your call. We are looking at coverage of the war by the media and other issues happening in washington. Since congress is out, we are doing a cspan town hall. Tigris is back on september 9. Three nights a week we will open up our phones and take a look at facebook and read some of your tweets on issues we are talking about tonight and looking at what some members of congress are up to as they head back to their home districts. Here is north kiacarolina democrat kay hagan. Alan nunnelee. Lots of these tweets from members of congress on what they are up to. If you are interested, over the august break. The way you can access some of his comments from members of congress, if youre on twitter, go to the list and you can choose and see what members are tweeting as they spent time back in their home districts. We want to look at the issues of the announcement today that the president would not be meeting with vladimir put in any upcoming g20 summit, not in the bilateral meeting, the oneon one meeting with Vladimir Putin in moscow. The state department has been talking about this for couple days. They talked about it today, and the issue of the meeting coming up on friday at the state department between secretary of state john kerry, chuck hagel, and there russian counterparts. In terms of what the secretary hopes to discuss on friday, he expects and hopes to discuss everything from cooperation on afghanistan, iran, north korea, areas where we have worked closely together, or we have agreements, but theres more work to be done given the challenge of these issues, to disagreements on Missile Defense, arms control, and human rights. There were also continued their dialogue on syria and discuss efforts towards geneva and the agreement that a political solution to the crisis is the right step to end the bloodshed. Discussing only issues where you agree or only issues where you disagree. It will be a combination. We have an important relationship with russia. I think you are familiar with the areas we disagree with, which i outlined many of them, but we believe we need to cooperate on areas where we can, or there is progress to be made in the world. Iran and north korea are both certainly good examples of that. There are also areas, as i mentioned, like Missile Defense and human rights and i certainly Edward Snowden, where we have disagreements. Those will be part of the discussion as well. Spokesmane department talking about the meeting coming up at the state Department Later this week. This is ceasefire and this is cspan town hall talking about the Media Coverage of war. Back to calls. Anna is on a republican line. Caller i just wanted to say i think the media does a herbal a horrible job when it records information on more and the appeared to be more against the military and for them. There has been a lot of times that it appears like the media side with the enemy over our military. There has been things the report more whenever our military accidentally takes out innocent zones than ther times that they actually stop terroristic attacks where they were at. I would just like to see in i also want to say that the media should be following our military around when they are out on patrols or going out into an area where theres going to be combat. I do not think that they have a place in their. Foruse my son was overseas six years and i have heard things about the media that would get me upset and i would talk to him and he would reassure me that it was nothing how the media was portraying it. And i would like to see more support behind our military and less support behind our enemies. And more coverage on how our thwarted awarts or lot of attacks and when they make a mistake and they do something wrong. I do not like to hear about civilians being killed either, but why should that be covered more than whenever they actually stop a lot of killing of innocent people . Host if you are looking for what you consider an accurate portrayal of whether what is going on in afghanistan or what happened in a wreck, who do you trust most in terms of war reporting . Caller more of the conservative media. I will not eat watch our local i will not watch our local station in my area when they do any type of reporting on and especiallyd, on the war. I do not listen to them. Host thanks for your call. We will go to Camp Pendleton, california. If you happen to see the event . Buter unfortunately, not, i had several peers that went. I was more impressed with him as a public speaker. The background that i am in, he not a popular affiliate figure. One of the things i wanted, and regional medialy is. Being exposed to the that way of thinking, a huge group of people that are not from the same background as mine, the same news stories, my fellow democrats viewed it as a war Propaganda Machine are saying a it as my peers view liberal propaganda, if that makes sense. Host thanks for your call. The video of president obama speaking at Camp Pendleton earlier today. The white house announcing the president would not be meeting with Vladimir Putin in russia in moscow in the upcoming g20 summit. A reporter writing about the decision and probably about its vocations and policy. What is russias game political scientists might call this behavior, and perhaps the most noteworthy fact about the postcold war world now is how little does balancing has occurred until now. Since theyears soviet union disappeared, none of the major powers has stepped up to replace the ussr or engaged in a Major Military buildup, and the geopolitical power games of yore. China does not appear to be building up a Bluewater Navy the way the soviet union once did. Comments from Michael Hersch national journal. Caller i am proud to say my oldest brother was in vietnam as a marine, and he was an officer, yes. But he got shrapnel in his leg, and i was in high school when he came home, and i buroke the barrier when he came off the plane, and i hugged him and hugged him. But he had a family and everything, and thank the this, a man that he worked with figured out what he was going to do him and he took a gun to the park and was going to commit suicide, and that man saved his life. We here in america, we are americans because of those men and women. I am a volunteer at the vets hospital here in madison, and i love it. I cannot tell you enough about it. They want to talk, and i let them talk. Treatedamed of how we them when they got home. I cannot say enough about the military. Host thanks for your call. Before we get to bill, lets talk about our twitter comments. Says, find that foreign media and internet have far better coverage on war, couches or a, bbc. Hello, bill, republican line. Caller im a veteran. I served 28 years in the military. I look at these kids when they come home. They have a thousandyear stare. [indiscernible] host how long do you think that would go over, bill biger the veterans go over. That wasn took it out, the biggest mistake they ever made. I think everybody should serve two years of their life for their freedom. I was an r. A. Host when did you serve . Caller in vietnam. I was in reconnaissance. Host how long were you in vietnam . Caller three tours. Host go back to our topic this evening, were looking at how the media covers wars. Is there a difference a day than the media covered vietnam . Caller we work with the media people. They followed us in some of our operations. Did you find them cooperative, helpful, telling the story accurately . Caller no, i did not. I thought it was all bull crap. They showed bodies that we had made, but they should not have. They should not even know about it. Host thanks for that call. Sean on ournia, democrats line. Youre on the air. Caller hi. I would like to comment on the but notg of the war, only that, just reporting of everything else. I am a fairly young guy, 26 years old. Typically i switch between the and foxnels, msnbc, news, to get their perspective. On different issues that are going on. It is funny because my girlfriend asked me, why do you switch between the two channels . I always respond by saying one channel is the rebuttal to the other. As far as the war, and other you do not typically hear a lot about the war going on right now. I cannot compare it to the vietnam war that happened back in the 1970s and the cold war that happened in the 1980s and 1990s. Host this goes back a couple years, but it says, and let me know if you think these figures are about as accurate. It says afghanistan coverage took up four percent of the News Coverage in the year 2010, and in terms of iraqi them an iraqi was winding down, it said over a ofilar course of 2010, 1 the News Coverage was devoted to iraq. In no week did iraqi consume more than 10 of what they called the news hole in News Coverage. Does that sound what it is right or less . Caller i tend to take sister six with a grain of salt. I tend to take the statistics with a grain of salt. I guess when i think of Mainstream Media, i think of cnn and msnbc, fox, and some of the usual suspects. Im constantly on the hunt for unbiased news to where they report not just on the war, but on everything else. I guess i would say that those figures probably do hold some not there is or out liars to those numbers that are being presented, i guess that is to be debated. I would say that there is some truth to those numbers. Host you mentioned it p ponging back between ms msnbc and fox youer when you watch fox, find them leaning more to left. Cnn i would say theyre in the middle. They lean toward the left in little more. Aside from that, depending on which network you want, they will report different dings. Things. Whenays tell people that you talk about things that are being reported in the media, i come back to the rebuttal it depends on who you watch. Probably, cspan is one of the more unbiased networks that report on all the issues. It seems like cspan is more concerned with reporting the news than they are as opposed to the other big networks, who are concerned with making the news. Host except for our coverage of our guest who did cover for us, we do not field a Foreigner Bureau of covering the wars, so we are not in a position where we do take coverage from discussions on the war, reporting on the war, sometimes simulcasting other stations and things like that. Cspan would not have those challenges as the networks may. Caller absolutely, understood. Host thanks for your call this evening. We are talking about the issue of Media Coverage of war. Theres a lot of coverage update on activities of a defense activities, not only in washington, but across the country, and publications dedicated to doing that. Here is a report on Sexual Assault in the military. Ren samuelson saying the Defense Department considers more action on Sexual Assault. He says chuck hagel is planning a new round of Sexual Assault policies that include expanding and