While it is sad to see reports of Americans killed in Ukraine in recent months, one has to ask what were they doing in an active war zone in the first place - especially if their passport said they worked for the US State Department.

Frankly, if you called me a cynic when it comes to reading Western media reports about the war in Ukraine, you'd be absolutely right.

My cynicism is nevertheless well founded, because as some of you may know, I long ago volunteered to go to Vietnam as a war correspondent for the New Zealand Press Association.

For reasons beyond my control, the assignment did not eventuate - but perhaps what you don't know is that some years later, while the war was still raging, I was now a TVNZ Editor, and we did send a reporter to Saigon. He returned with some graphic footage showing him doing a front-line piece to camera, and diving for cover as gunfire erupted around him.

It made a great report for national broadcast and I was one of the first to admire him for his courage.

However, having fired a few rounds myself, something about the oh-so-close proximity of the shooting he had survived, just didn't sound right - literally. As well, he had previously confided over a few beers and brandy chasers that he had worked in Hong Kong for the British intelligence agency, MI6, monitoring communist China's military radio frequencies.

Then, he appeared in the TVNZ newsroom and pretty soon he was sent to Vietnam.

I may be a cynic about mainstream news now, but I was also a bit of a skeptic back then.

So I got him primed on beer and brandy, knowing full well that loose lips sink ships. And he sank himself. He confided that the piece to cam was shot not far from the safety of the big city, with some soldiers helping out by doing the shooting fairly close to the live microphone so he could dive for cover in full view of any potential future audience.

My senior editors really didn't like me telling them the truth (which on reflection they probably knew already) and the story was never corrected.

Yes, when it comes to war, truth is definitely one of the first casualties.

To stretch the metaphor, if you want to get anywhere near close to the truth, you have to work your way through a minefield of propaganda and mainstream media disinformation, peppered with shards of truth and salted with lies to taste.

(Whew!).