Saturday. 8/1/1998 “Khatoco Hotel,” The neon sign spells brightly against the fresh dusky night. Up top, three giant well-lit cigarette packages display prominently as if it says “smoke me please”. Our group pour out of the packed van and file into the air cooled hotel lobby. Thọ, a ten years…

Nothing worth more to me than the ability to move around where knowledge can be gained and understanding can be broadened. Travel gives me a perspective of the world and an insight to myself. It tests my limitation, my flexibility and my reservoir of passion for life. …

excerpt from an upcoming memoir By Duc Nguyen It was the end of April 1975, when the air was filled with heavy moisture, I woke up covered in sweats. Things were quieter than usual. Out on the street, people weren't moving around like any other day. As a matter of…

by Duc Nguyen While diversity inclusion is a well-used buzzword in the broadcasting world with stories like Maria Taylor and Rachel Nichols debacle at ESPN, it is a more complex or should I say tricky topic to understand and even tougher to digest. Diversity inclusion is required but is it followed? I have an experience I’d like to…

by Duc Nguyen The non-fiction nature of documentary films has brought the issues of authenticity and ethical obligation back to the debate of objectivity. It questions the integrity of the filmmaker as a presenter of images. Michelle Citron wrote that every shot in documentary films is charged with the ethical…

by Duc Nguyen The decoding task of television messages, even in its most salient state, is a complex undertaking. Stuart Hall attributed the difficulty of “televisual” translation to the nature of the medium. “Since the visual discourse translates a three-dimensional world into two-dimensional planes, it cannot, of course, be the…

by Duc Nguyen The modern era of advertising in the mid-1920s led America’s consumer culture through a period of revitalization. The need for infusing the cash-strapped consumers, caused by the Depression, to buy products forged advertisers to instill approaches with new strategies. One of these strategy was to insert cultural…

by Duc Nguyen Regarded as an unethical piece of television journalism during the Elian Gonzalez case, ABC’s Good Morning America interview with the six-year-old Cuban boy by Diane Sawyer ventures deeply into shaping news as entertainment. By doing so, the show brings much criticism. Despite the outcries from Fidel Castro…

by Duc Nguyen In America, war is like a test trial. As long as it does not cost, no question asked. But, when the body bags begin to return, the public start to wonder. The recent reports on seven U.S. servicemen killed in action do more than raising questions, they…