The Chicago Tribune’s Ron Grossman writes:
“I took a quick survey in the newsroom the other day, something between a Rorschach test and a pop quiz, asking younger colleagues to identify an iconic photograph of World War II.”
While some instantly recognized the image, others couldn’t quite place it.
“I know I ought to know it,” one co-worker said. “It was in the movie, ‘Flags of Our Fathers.'” Some, seeing uniforms, realized it must be a war photo. Maybe Vietnam? One got the era right but the battlefield wrong. She guessed it was D-Day, not, as it was, the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima.
Is this historical ignorance more of a generational thing, or is it more evidence of a general overall media ignorance?”