ipl-logo

Vietnam War Media Analysis

717 Words3 Pages

Media Coverage in the Vietnam War

The media played a big role during the Vietnam War and their coverage has greatly affected how the media can cover modern wars. During Vietnam, the media were given almost full access to everything from battlefields, gunfights, the wounded, the dead, and interviews with the soldiers themselves. This was also the first war that was able to be viewed on TV; over 90 percent of Americans had TV’s, and 60 percent used TV as their main source of news (Hillsheim). The “gruesome showing of death and pain” made many Americans squirm on their couches (Burns). This forced the US government to put laws into place to limit what the media can and cannot show on TV during times of war.
From the start of World War II, television …show more content…

Journalists were able to use these technological advances to help collect more pictures, videos, and audio recordings than ever before. Yet now, the government had a big problem on their hands, controlling the access and the knowledge the media is allowed in and around the battlefield. David Anderson, of the Columbia University Press stated, “With inadequate government controls, the media was now able to publish uncensored pictures and videos showing the brutality of the war in Vietnam and, thus, vastly influenced American public opinion in unprecedented proportion.”
Before the start of the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam war, in the late 1950’s, the press had little to no interest at all in Vietnam, with most reports focusing on the rise of communism in the country. This lack of interest wouldn’t last as by the end of 1960, the death of civillians in a rebellion against the president sparked major interest among the American media. Soon, many major news stations began sending over scout reporters, as the stories seemed to strike a nerve in the American …show more content…

Media started to affect the public’s opinion in a negative way, which became a matter of concern for the government. As the war intensified, the numbers of press in Vietnam increased, from a mere 40 in early 1964, all the way to 419 by August of 1965 (Hallon 106). To keep this new influx of press in check the U.S. had to implement stricter rules to keep from leaking sensitive information. In the later months of 1964, the U.S. Mission and Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) chose to appoint an “information czar” by the name of, Barry Zorthian, to improve and enforce information policy (Rhon). From 1965 to 1967, Barry Zorthian, was able to control the media quite well, with most nightly news stations such as CBS, and NBC telling the daily war stories of “the good guys beating up on those communist pigs.” The news stations liked the stories, as did the American public who tuned in the see the heroic tales of the power of modern democracy. This image of Vietnam soon changed for the worse as the Tet offensive took place.
Late in January of 1968, the Tet Offensive took place marking, according to Jacob Hillsheim, “a major turning point in media’s coverage of the war.” Although the Tet offensive was a travesty and a terrible mistake for the North Vietnamese military, the media reports painted a different picture. The media chose to

Show More
Related
1071 Words | 5 Pages

There was a variety of ways that American society realized that war was not a fight that the soldiers should not have been there in the first place. Because of the new modern-age televisions, many people and families could see soldiers interviewed in the middle of battle and even killed. The Tet Offensive was one of the main turning points in the war because of the media coverage, because there were traumatic images being shown all across the country, which made the people realize that they should not have been part of this war by showing that more U.S. soldiers were being killed than we could replace. There were many news reporters that were in the jungles of enemy territory (“Media”). These men were not supposed to record the battles themselves, just the “body counts” of how many enemies the troops had killed that day.

Read More
973 Words | 4 Pages

With the media increasing its role in informing the American public about the war in detail, along with graphic images, war atrocities, such as the My Lai Massacre, became more difficult to cover up, which stirred even more violent public outcry. Not long after the media broadcasted the massacre, the release of the “Pentagon Papers” diminished what little trust was left of the government. The My Lai Massacre and the Pentagon Papers were two of the greatest contributors to the U.S. government credibility gap because the massacre exposed the horrors of an already controversial war and how far the government would conspire to conceal the truth, and the Pentagon Papers exposed numerous other government cover ups. The My Lai Massacre contributed to the widening credibility gap and mistrust of the U.S. government because it revealed the government’s readiness to cover up atrocities that would add to the criticism of the government’s actions.

Read More
511 Words | 3 Pages

The 1960’s and early 1970’s was a period when America was involved in many conflicts overseas, including the Vietnam War. This began a time when media spread quickly as well as influenced the public heavily and wars were first televised. These conflicts ultimately caused citizens to protest and question the motives of the federal government. A large number of these protestors were students who sought to combat problems through various tactics to get authority figures to remedy the problems they identified. Student protestors sought to combat many immediate and long-term problems involving this time period and the Vietnam War.

Read More
1097 Words | 5 Pages

often, people had a glimpse into the very negative nightly from their homes. Many families with fathers.” When the war was publically telecasted, individuals got the genuine perspective of the truth. After seeing something as traumatizing as that it scared many Americans to not trust the government. In the event that the government had been coming clean, it wouldn't have been such a manipulating occasion since we knew.

Read More
568 Words | 3 Pages

According to The University of Virginia’s document, “The 6:00 Follies: Hegemony, Television News, and the War of Attrition”: “Vietnam... is often is

Read More
140 Words | 1 Pages

The people of America were watching through the media to gain an understanding of this situation. In these stories humanity is seen to

Read More
891 Words | 4 Pages

One of the most controversial wars in history and a turning point in American foreign policy, the emotions and events surrounding the Vietnam War capture the essence of the era. The rise of rebellious youth culture and anti-war and anti-draft movements were key social aspects of American life leading up to and during the fighting. (Doc 2, 3) On the political side, Congress aimed to control the Chief-Executive with legislation such as the War Powers Act of 1973, requiring the president to remove all unreported troops in Vietnam and report any further sent. (Doc 7) To say the country was divided would be a massive understatement.

Read More
965 Words | 4 Pages

The emotional appeal held over the people's heads from the public protests was a heavy coating against the war. Because Vietnam was the first war that was broadcasted across

Read More
1101 Words | 5 Pages

“I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it” - George McGovern. There are numerous controversial topics dispersed among the subject of American history due to the amount of unethical decisions that have been made in order to improve the lives of the people or keep America out of the clutches of war. Throughout American history, historians have debated the ethical impact that the Vietnam war had on the United States. Although some people may believe that the Vietnam War achieved the goal of avoiding communism and protecting the people, the overarching idea is that it was an unjust war because of the countless lives that were lost from the participating countries, the

Read More
1524 Words | 7 Pages

The war in Vietnam to do this day has gone down as one of the influential and controversial wars in United States history. The war lasted from 1955 to 1975.The nation as a whole began to uproar over the war and the major consequences of the war. There were many reasons why so many Americans were against the war. Public opinion steadily turned against the war following 1967 and by 1970 only a third of Americans believed that the U.S. had not made a mistake by sending troops to fight in Vietnam (Wikipedia). Not to mention, many young people protested because they were the ones being drafted while others were against the war because the anti-war movement grew increasingly popular among the counterculture and drug culture in American society and

Read More
1389 Words | 6 Pages

Young men who went off to fight in World War I and World War II were respected and seen as heroes upon their return home. Vietnam veterans who were coming home were seen as criminals and were strongly opposed by the American people. Vietnam was one of the first wars where the media had a strong influence on the people. The media sent reporters to the battlefields in Vietnam to directly report the horrors of war and what the American soldiers were actually doing. People were horrified when they saw all of the civilian injuries and deaths that resulted from artillery and firefights; people saw the American soldiers as the villains rather than the heroes.

Read More
765 Words | 4 Pages

Also, newspapers revealed stories and government secrets that proved that the American people were being lied to ( New York Times vs. the United States). The Vietnam war is believed by some to be a war deeply rooted in economics. Many aspects of the United States were affected directly. The Great Society programs were suffering because the money that was put towards the war, could have been used to help poverty programs.

Read More
481 Words | 2 Pages

Sleep is a peaceful comfort. It is a way for a person to escape the reality of life for a moment. Death however is not a comfort or an escape from reality. Death is the end. Most people see sleep and death as to similar entities.

Read More
744 Words | 3 Pages

In America, Media bias is everywhere, in the United States all the information that an average American received through everyday sources, the news was most likely processed through the media and told through a biased point of view, when the media gets their hands on news if it is important then it probably won’t be talked about or downplayed no matter the source like in the newspaper, radio, television, movies, as well as other outlets that the media uses, the media only seems to share the news that they find interesting, even then the media would most likely have changed the story, in what they say is just tweaked news, what actually happened and what really happened would be two different stories, also the story would be told from one person

Read More
2798 Words | 12 Pages

A media source which ignores or censors important issues and events severely damages freedom of information. Many modern tabloids, twenty four hour news channels and other mainstream media sources have increasingly been criticized for not conforming to general standards of journalistic integrity. In nations described as authoritarian by most international think-tanks and NGOs media ownership is generally something very close to the complete state control over information in direct or indirect ways. Undesirable consequences which occur due to media imperialism are: • Commercially driven ultra-powerful mass market media is primarily loyal to sponsors i.e. advertisers and government rather than to the public interest.

Read More

More about Vietnam War Media Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document