Essay on The Role of Media During the Vietnam War

In her book The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990, author Marilyn Young examines the series of political and military struggles between the United States and Vietnam, a nation that has been distinctively separated as the South and the North. Young chooses to express the daily, weekly, monthly progresses of the affairs collectively called the Vietnam Wars, focusing on the American interventions in the foreign soil. She seeks to provide an answer to a question that has haunted the world for years: What was the reason behind the United States interfering in the internal affairs of a foreign country in which it had no claims at all? Young discloses the overt as well as covert actions undertaken by the U.S. government officials regarding the foreign affairs with Vietnam and the true nature of the multifaceted objectives of each and every person that’s involved had.

The Vietnam War was the first war that allowed uncensored media coverage resulting in images and accounts of horrific events that served to shape public opinion of the war like nothing that had been seen before. This portrayal by the media led to a separation between the press and the U.S. government, as much of what was reported defied the intentions of government policy. The media has fell blame by many for the result of the war, as it is widely believed that the war could not have been won under the scrutiny that came from the American people as a result of the media

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 Vietnam War had no restrictions on what the media could and couldn’t cover, making a very public war. Journalists from big companies and small towns went to Vietnam to cover what was happening. Some went for the excitement and adventure. Others wanted to be on page one and be part of the exclusive combat correspondent club. These journalists were taking any information they could get and were sending it back to for American people to view. These journalists could even go into North Vietnam, if they had the courage too. Some journalists, based of what they saw, believed that the war was unwinnable. The military ended up blaming the media for the loss because the turned the American people against the troops in Vietnam through the information

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

For the government had inadequate controls, the media was able to publish uncensored pictures and videos showing the brutality of the war in Vietnam and, thus, vastly influence public opinion, contrasting between what the governments adamant opinion that the war was going to be won. The media exposed how badly the environment and weather was that the troops were dealing with and also the consequences of unknown territory, constantly paranoid as to whether they were going to be ambushed by camouflaged Viet Cong or attacked by hidden booby traps. The troops were unexperienced in the field and at major

Photojournalist, James Nachtwey captured pictures of American soldiers on the battlefield during the war, the images were filled with dead soldiers, fighting and bombing missions. The photos were very graphic and filled with emotion which is the reason many people cared about the events happening during the war so much. Reporters who covered the Vietnam War over the radio and television gave the public the “PG version” of the events happening, basically they were reporting and writing very vague descriptions of the war. Journalists didn’t actually know what was going on in Vietnam so they gave the public information based on their interpretation. Society did not learn the truth until documentary photographers revealed graphic photos of the war to newspaper companies.

War is truly a horrific event that unfortunately occurs in our world frequently. There are a variety of ethical questions surrounding war, such as how much should citizens know about the fighting? When it comes to reporting the news, it is the goal of the network to report the news first. The benefit to this is people will turn to them first when it comes to breaking stories. However if the news is delivered based on speed and not accuracy this can be harmful to society. War is a very serious event and should not be taken lightly. Therefore, reporters must make sure facts are correct and unbiased. In both the Vietnam War and our current war we see reporters going to extreme measures to be the first

Starting in the mid-1950s and not due to end til the fall of Saigon in 1975, the Vietnam War showcased a fundamental milestone in American mainstream media. Under the leadership of three different presidents; Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, respectively, the United States experienced a turmoil of foreign policy changes, resultant protests, and the rise of a fourth branch of government: the media. Most historians agree that an overwhelming factor to popular opinion and the overall war effort are attributed to the media’s actions during the Vietnam War’s entirety. The public viewed several mediums in the media as a reliable source of information because of its accessibility, stimulating effect, and graphic visuals, which were further heightened

The investigation assesses the media coverage of the Tet Offensive and its impact on American policy concerning the Vietnam War from 1968 until 1969. The investigation evaluates the contrast between media broadcasts and government reports of the war, the effect of the media on the American public, and the effect of American public opinion on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s course of action. Two of the sources, Vietnam and America: A Documented History by Marvin E. Gettleman, Jane Franklin, Marilyn Young, and H. Bruce Franklin, and The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam by Daniel C. Hallin are examined.

As more and more troops were being sent to Vietnam, and the casualties began to rise, people began to question the government’s involvement. “Even military troops came to mistrust their government’s reasons for keeping them there, as well as Washington’s claims that the war was being won”.(Vietnam War) The Vietnam war was the first war to be broadcast on television. This meant that for the first time the American people were able to see the war instead of just hearing about it on the radio. They were able to see firsthand the soldier’s faces, see the reality of where they were fighting and to see the

war the enemy would be in uniform and it was clear who to kill who not

The coincidence of the growth of television with the first military defeat for America was used by the government to explain why the war was lost: it wasn’t because of government policy or by underestimating the enemy but because television journalism and lack of censorship that undermined the whole operation “by ‘graphic and unremitting distortion’ of the facts, pessimism, and unvarnished depiction of both Americas youthful casualties and American ‘atrocities’ inflicted on the Vietnamese.” The amount of televisions in America was on the increase; ‘In 1950, only 9 percent of homes owned a television. By 1966, this figure rose to 93 percent.’ This alone shows the sheer coverage that the news had and the potential influence that it could impose upon the minds of the people. Not only did more people have television sets in their homes but more and more people were relying on television over any other medium to obtain their news. The survey conducted by the Roper organisation for the Television Information Office in 1972 shows us that 64% of people got most of their news from television, an 8% increase from the survey conducted in 1964. Another factor in the power of television was not just the fact that it reached a wide audience, it was also the fact that people were more likely to believe what the television news said over reports in the newspaper or radio, especially if the reports were conflicting in nature. This was due to two factors; the personality who

During the war, American journalism reporters were believed to only give facts which were only relevant and official. According to Daniel Miller(2004) this believe stirred doomed objectivity giving way to official influence which hindered success of Kennedy’s policies in Vietnam. As picture about the war appeared in the media criticizing the manner in which the war was being carried out in South Vietnamese, people become pessimistic about the success of the Saigon government. While other picture appearing in the media supported the Americans who had advised the Saigon Government

Mass Media and the Vietnam War Many people at the beginning and before the Vietnam War were in confusion on whether going to war was such a good thing; this mainly consisted of the American public. By the time it had reached the peak of the war much of the American public had swung towards being for the war. This was mainly due the mass media at the time, one integral part of the mass media that often swayed public opinion was television, it proved to be such an effective method of communication, that it often shocked and consequently altered public opinion. Television wasn’t the only form of mass media; there were magazines and the radio.