PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Well, there are probably many answers to the question in the headline, but for me one lack is paramount and can be listed in one word: Context.

It some ways, lack of context always has been the case as reporters for newspapers, radio stations and TV outlets struggle to fit content into constraints of space and time. But, today, the lack of context is more pronounced than ever.

The apparent journalistic quest today is either to race for a scoop in the battle for subscribers or viewers, or to place an emphasis on the battle between opponents rather than on the context of the battle.

In a great quote from a newspaper friend of mine, he said “reporters sit on the promontory watching the battle below, then go down to the field to shoot the wounded.”

The lack-of-context problem is even more severe given two conditions – one old and one new. The old condition, especially in the TV business, is a focus on getting pictures that get the audience’s attention. The context of the picture is often irrelevant.

The new condition is the huge prevalence of “social media,” which means there is no longer a news cycle. Or, the fact is that the “cycle” is a second or two in duration.

Add to all this another unfortunate, but true, fact: In the rush to produce, reporters often get facts wrong and rarely admit the same later as accurate information comes into focus.

In a piece that ran in the Wall Street Journal late last month, William Luti, a retired career naval officer and former special assistant for defense policy and strategy to President George W. Bush, paints a grim picture of reporting on the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War.

As an aside, remember that war and the Tet Offensive? If only because it occurred so many years ago, many in the generation behind me do not know much about it. But even though I did not go to Vietnam to fight, I remember the war very well, especially because a number of my friends were fated to enter that hell.

Luti asks the question: Did fake news lose the Vietnam War? And he contends that journalists wrongly portrayed the Tet Offensive as a U.S. defeat and never corrected the record.

Luti goes on: “Seemingly out of nowhere, a shock wave hit South Vietnam on January 30, 1968. In a coordinated assault unprecedented in ferocity and scale, more than 100,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers stormed out of their sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia. They went on to attack more than 100 towns and cities across South Vietnam.

“The following 77 days changed the course of the Vietnam War. The American people were bombarded with a nightly stream of devastating television and daily print reporting. Yet, what they saw was so at odds with the reality on the ground that many Vietnam veterans believe truth itself was under attack.

“Despite their ferocity, by most objective military standards, the communists achieved none of their goals. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces held fast, regrouped and fought back. By late March, they had achieved a decisive victory over the communist forces. Hanoi wouldn’t be able to mount another full-scale invasion of South Vietnam until the 1972 Easter offensive.

“But in living rooms across America, the nightly news described an overwhelming American defeat. The late Washington Post Saigon correspondent Peter Braestrup later concluded the event marked a major failure in the history of American journalism.”

I thought about Vietnam this week because a friend of mine, who lived through the war, but did not have to fight there, is heading over to vacation in that country. Several other friends have done the same.

For my part, I have no desire to go there – for vacation or any other reason. For me, it was a place of war and incalculable human suffering on all sides. No need to re-live that on site.

But back to my main point. Journalism in the Tet Offensive suffered, and so did our perceptions of a terrible war. If opposition to the Vietnam War was warranted, so be it. But opposition should not have centered on inaccurate and out-of-context reporting.

Learning lessons from Tet, as well as from a host of more recent events, we need better and more accurate reporting – reporting that is accurate and provides context.