The Impact of Media Coverage of the Tet Offensive on American Policy

Such coverage, along with the vivid images that emerge on T.V. led to a serious rise in anti-war protest that was merely strengthened by the events of 1968. The Tet Offensive of 1968 marked the greatest conflict in beliefs of the United Stated government and the media. In January, North Vietnamese troops attacked the North cities of South Vietnam and the U.S. embassy in Saigon. The media and the television, however, portrayed the attack as a brutal defeat for the U.S, totally altering the outcome of the war at the very moment when government officials were publicly stating that victory in Vietnam was "just around the corner" (Wyatt 167)[8]. The media covered all the events that immediately followed the Tet Offensive and the American public began wondering whether this war could be won. Don Oberdorfer a Washington reporter said that “there’s no doubt Tet was one of the biggest events in contemporary American history, within two months the, American body politically turned around on the war. And they were significantly

This essay will discuss to what degree the media can be blamed for the United States’ loss in the Vietnam conflict ending 1975. It will be based predominantly on key written resources on the subject, but it will also contain - by means of an interview - certain first-hand observations from a Vietnam War veteran.

The introductory attack began spectacularly during celebrations of the Vietnamese Lunar New Year and left global lungs breathless (Farber and Bailey 34-54). Widely seen as the turning point in the Vietnam War, the NLF and PAVN won an enormous psychological and propaganda-associated victory, which ultimately led to the loss of popular support for the War in the United States and the eventual withdrawal of American troops. Additionally, the events surrounding the Tet Offensive piloted American citizens to increased polarization. Attracting members from college campuses, middle-class suburbs, labor unions, and government institutions, the anti-war movement was swollen with aggrieved affiliates (Farber and Bailey 34-54). The observable pathos of the protesters delivered the distrust of a growing population to the White House doors; the budding doubt in governmental affairs was difficult to discard and impossible to ignore. Indisputably, the Tet Offensive of 1968 cleaved the fragile harmony of the public and birthed a political skepticism that continues to subsist in modern American minds.

During the Vietnam War, Americans were greatly influenced by the extensive media coverage of the war. Before the 1960’s and the intensification of the war, public news coverage of military action was constrained heavily by the government and was directed by Government policy. The Vietnam War uniquely altered the perception of war in the eyes of American citizens by bringing the war into their homes. The Vietnam War was the first U.S uncensored war resulting in the release of graphic images and unaltered accounts of horrific events that helped to change public opinion of the war like nothing it had ever been. This depiction by the media led to a separation between the United States government and the press; much of what was reported flouted

The Tet Offensive had a major impact upon the outcome of the Second Indochina War, particularly due to the fact that it powerfully swayed public opinion in America of the Vietnam War. The American publics' option of the Vietnam War beforehand had been strongly leaning toward their involvement in favor of conscription. However after the devastating loss of the Tet offensive much exposure was not put onto the war effort and the losses incurred. Many stated that Tet was fruitless and futile, this is also partly due to the fact that there had been increased opposition to the use of conscription in the American mainstream media.

January 31, 1968 North Vietnamese attacked over 100 cities throughout South Vietnam on thirty-five of forty-four province capitals, thirty-six district towns, and many villages and hamlets. Dubbed the “Tet Offensive” because it coincided with the Vietnamese New Year’s holiday, Tet, was a turning point in the Vietnam War. Most historians agree that the Tet Offensive was the turning point in the Vietnam War as events shifted the role of United States involvement in Southeast Asia as the shock it produced was the catalyst that led to the reevaluation of U.S. policy. While intelligence failure contributed to the shift in the Vietnam War, most historians have disagreed on the role of the media in aiding the American public’s views against the war.

The increasing number of troops and military efforts involved with Vietnam and the seemingly optimistic reports reported by the government were the primary factors that caused the Tet Offensive and Counteroffensive. The American government had become increasingly involved with the Vietnam war. From 1965 to 1967, over 400,000 soldiers were sent to help the South Vietnamese forces. This massive increase in the amount of soldiers was frustrating to the American people. Johnson’s approval rating fell to a mere 40%, half of what it had been in 1965.  (“Vietnam War (1959-1975)” ; Axelrod 1). When the American soldiers returned home from Vietnam, it was often heard that they were spit on, and

The ‘Tet Offensive’ showed the first signs of the effect the media had in Vietnam, which led to the the question of “why did the audience see what they saw?” Firstly, unlike previous wars journalists had “extraordinary” freedom to cover Vietnam without any direct government intervention. Overtime this noticeably created a problem where the harsh brutal accounts from journalists differed from the positive optimism that United States Officials portrayed. The media was simply the messenger to the American people. But this was the first instance where technological advances had allowed a war to be played out on your own television screen every night of the week. The journalists reacted in the same way as the American public; they too were shocked beyond belief at the constant scenes of burning villages, bloody soldiers and lifeless bodies. These feelings came across in the broadcasts and like the ‘media effects theory’ explains, naturally Americans took up that same belief. This was the first time that the American public showed collective beliefs opposing to the war. To further push public opinion against the war, Hallin suggested that there was a “…declining morale among American troops in the field…”. The thirty-minute nightly

By 1968, more than half of the American people relied on television as their principal source of news. What they saw informed, engrossed, and unsettled them. CBS Evening News anchor Harry Reasoner referred to it as “horrors and failures.” The Vietnam War dominated the network newscast as it never had before. Suddenly the war was everywhere. The impact on the American public would indeed be great. It set off a critical reaction to the war within the American media and gave greater credence to arguments against the war that a vocal protest movement had been voicing for some time. The media coverage of the Tet Offensive had a great influence on the eventual outcome of the fighting and its aftermath. Clarence Wyatt, author of Paper

The 1968 Tet Offensive was an event that changed history, an event that led to another event that no country thought would ever happen. A United States defeat, what every country in the world after World War II saw as impossible, was made possible by the “failed” mission of the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive was an attack conducted by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the National Liberation Front (NLF) on the South Vietnamese government in an attempt to defeat the South, which were being supported by the United States for being anti-communist. The Tet Offensive was launched on the Vietnamese new year of Tet on January 30 and 31. The Tet Offensive was a strategy developed by North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap during the Vietnam War.

There are two, interrelated myths surrounding the Tet Offensive that supporters of the war use in defense of the U.S. intervention in Vietnam. The first is that a resounding American military victory in Vietnam was turned into defeat due to the political and psychological impact of the attacks in the United States. The second myth was that the media and the television in particular, presented such a distorted picture of the attacks on the cities that it appeared that the war was being lost. This in turn led to a panic by the American public, and in parts of the Johnson administration, that led American officials to misunderstand the meaning of the attack and overreact to it. The result was the unnecessary beginning process of American withdrawal.

Starting with Walter Cronkite one of the most likely and trusted reporter in America. He said that he didn't think we could win. The Tet Offensive was the point where Americans understood that we couldn't win in Vietnam. I don't know whether most-Americans knew then, however a good amount had heard. There was resistance to the war, yet it was for the most part in view of the war being improper and unlawful.

The planned attacks by communist forces inside South Vietnam’s major cities and towns that began around the Vietnamese new year of 1 February 1968. The coordinated attacks from the Vietcong on major urban areas and military bases in the attempt to rouse a popular resistance of the anti-Saigon and American forces. The heaviest contact lasted for three weeks in cities, such as Hue. Both sides took massive causalities, but the large number of loses of the Vietcong led to the PAVN to take the primary role of aggressor against the South. Furthermore, the fighting destabilized the weakened South Vietnamese government, because of large wave of displaced refugees. The largest impact of the Tet Offensive surprise attack was the crumbing American support

Before the invention of Television, most people could not possibly be completely cognizant of events going on overseas or even on the other side of the country and therefore had to rely on the Presidents’ word. In 1968, the Vietnam War was at its peak. President Johnson held fast to his belief that we would be able to win so the American people continued to support him. However CBS’s Walter Cronkite decided to make a trip to the war-torn country of Vietnam to see the current situation with his own eyes. When he returned he announced to the American public that the war was hopeless and there was no way that military victory was possible. Johnson knew that the American people greatly respected Cronkite and that they would all believe the war was hopeless. So the only thing for him to do was to pull troops out of Vietnam and call the war “an honorable attempt to defend democracy.” I believe that Cronkite’s coverage of the war was a good thing because it allowed the American public to see exactly what was going on and make their own decisions about the situation. People no longer had to rely only on the President. Cronkite’s documentary was also an important deciding

In late January of 1968, during the Vietnamese lunar new year known as Tet, the North Vietnamese launched a coordinated series of attacks on cities and outposts in South Vietnam. The attack, which went on to be known as the Tet Offensive, was an attempt from the Viet Cong to spark a rebellion in South Vietnam and to send a stark message to United States, advising them to limit their involvement in the conflict. Although U.S. and South Vietnamese troops were able to hold off some of the attacks, the Tet Offensive was still a victory for the Viet Cong despite having received numerous casualties. The Tet Offensive marked a turning point for the Viet Cong in the Vietnam war, with the attack beginning the United States’ long withdraw from the country. Due to news coverage of the attack being broadcasted on American television, public support for the war began to deteriorate, leading to more people wanting for an end to the conflict.