TV&MOVIES

TV/MOVIES  "One, perhaps obvious, answer is that the Vietnam War was the most visually represented war in history, existing, to a great degree, as moving image, as the sight of a specific and complex iconic cluster. As even the novels and memoirs insist, the Vietnam War was itself a movie. Certainly, the war became a television event, a tragic serial drama stretched over thousands of nights in the American consciousness." Michael Anderegg

In fall of 1967, 90 percent of the evening news revolved around the war and roughly 50 million people watched the news every night. For the first time, journalists were able to report all of their findings no matter how gruesome or violent they were. There was no military censorship which allowed journalists to show the public more graphic images. Since all these new perspectives of the war were new, the public was intrigued by the coverage of the war. Journalists began searching for the information that would show the public the “truth.” This produced American hatred towards the Vietnam War and what the United States was doing. The US administration made no official attempt to censure the reporting in the Vietnam War, which made it all the more impacting on the public. Graphic footage of casualties on the nightly news made the public question the US glory. Walter Cronkite was a news reporter who ran a special on CBS news. He portrayed the brutality of the war and showed how the American soldiers treated the Vietnamese soldiers. After the Tet Offensive the coverage of American involvement in the war became especially negative. Before the Tet Offensive, there were four television stories devoted entirely to the positive morale of the troops and zero negative stories. After Tet, about two mentioned positive morale while the number of negative morale stories increased to over fourteen. Television coverage of the massacre at My Lai was perhaps the most damaging image for the U.S soldier's reputation. The media showed that American soldiers had killed almost 400 innocent South Vietnamese citizens. This angered the public at home and caused them to question the military’s motives.  

Source 1: Walter Cronkite reports from Saigon, Vietnam. He digs deep within the ruins to find out the true meaning of it all. media type="custom" key="3776179" width="148" height="148"

Source 2: Newspaper article "How is TV covering Vietnam"