How Media Coverage of the Vietnam War Changed America, Journalism

Reporters and photographers went through a big change in the Vietnam War and changed the style of reporting the war for future journalists. They went from reporting directly off of press releases and forming happy, enthusiastic stories to investigative reporting and writing cold, hard truthful stories. The stories coming from Vietnam and the photos coming from the front line did more than sway public opinion, they helped end the war.

The Vietnam War was fought between 1957 and 1975 on the ground in South Vietnam and bordering areas of Cambodia and Laos and in bombing runs over North Vietnam. The Vietnam War is often called the most unpopular American war of the twentieth century. It resulted in nearly 60,000 American deaths and an estimated 2 to 4 million Vietnamese deaths (Digital). Estimating the number killed in the conflict is extremely difficult, the true death count will probably never be known (Vietnam War).

Early on in the Vietnam War, many of the correspondents supported the war effort. They did not question the right of the United States to be there (Kahrs). Before the Vietnam War, the media's job was to keep the American listeners and readers optimistic and panic free. During the Korean War, U.S. actions were always presented in a positive light. But soon in the Vietnam War, reporters began to show skepticism of the government's presence and their intentions The correspondents' reports began to reflect the popular doubts that had been rising among the American public, primarily because of the increasing numbers of casualties. The reporters and photographers did not have as much enthusiasm as they had when they were first went to Vietnam; they were finding sad stories and painful pictures.

The media began to report the true awfulness of war and the politics behind it, to the American public. Because of the effort to reveal the truth from correspondents, many Americans began to doubt the government and the war. The media and the American people alike began losing hope in the government and war. The credibility of the American government suffered their biggest loss when the Pentagon Papers information was leaked to the public. The Pentagon Papers were published in the New York Times, and later the Washington Post and as well as other newspapers. The Pentagon Papers, revealed by journalists, contained numbers from the war that included far higher rates of American casualties and far less successful battles than the officially released government statistics had indicated. These documents were top-secret historical studies, contracted by the Pentagon, about the war, that showed how the government was misleading the US public, in all stages of the war (LaborLawTalk).

The media would not just accept press releases from the government, now they began more investigative journalism to check for the truth behind the official reports.

Reports during the Vietnam War and images from the front line on television were crucial factors in turning public opinion against the war. Dean Rusk, U.S. Secretary of State, once said, "This was the first struggle fought on television in everybody's living room every day... whether ordinary people can sustain a war effort under that kind of daily hammering is a very large question." The growing opposition to the war can be attributed in part to the much greater access to information about the war available to college age Americans compared with previous generations (LaborLawTalk). Photos of dead or wounded soldiers were shown nearly every night on television.

"Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America--not on the battlefields of Vietnam," Marshall McLuhan said in 1975 in what now is a famous quote about the war. Vietnam has been considered by many the first televised war.

Television was not available on any other war before Vietnam. Now that it was available, it was considered to be the most important source of news for the American public, and possibly the most powerful influence on public opinion itself (McLaughlin). Walter Cronkite, a broadcast news reporter, was said to be the "most trusted man in America" at that time according to CBS Evening News viewer opinion polls. In a well-known editorial report Cronkite gave during the Tet Offensive, he said that the war in Vietnam was unwinnable. Coming from the "most trusted man in America" this comment could easily sway many Americans. President Lyndon Johnson later said "If I've lost Walter Cronkite, I've lost Middle America" (Walter Cronkite).

The Tet Offensive was probably the second largest reason for public opinion to shift toward opposing the war. The public felt the government was deceiving them about what was actually going on in Vietnam. According to Wikipedia Encyclopedia, during a press conference on October 12, 1967, the U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk said that the proposals by Congress for the first move in negotiating a peace treaty were "futile because of North Vietnam's opposition". President Johnson then asked a group of the nation's leaders to suggest ways to unite the American people in support of the war effort in a secret meeting on November 2. The group concluded that the American people should be given more optimistic reports on the progress of the war (Vietnam War). On November 17 Johnson told the American public that while there was still a great deal to be done, "We are inflicting greater losses than we're taking...We are making progress." Following this in support according to LaborLawTalk Encyclopedia, General William Westmoreland on told news reporters November 21, "I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing."

Victory was repeatedly confirmed from the Johnson administration and General Westmoreland if there was at least one more increase in troops (Reference). Two months later the Tet Offensive made both of them regret their words (LaborLawTalk). On January 30, 1968, when the American public thought the enemy was close to breaking, the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam was launched. Almost every major city in South Vietnam was attacked. The intent of the horrifying attacks was to spark an uproar among the Vietnamese people. The enemy was hoping the people would then overthrow of the South Vietnamese government and the U.S. would have to withdraw (Vietnam War). Although no military objectives were accomplished, the surprise that an enemy that was supposedly on the verge of collapse was even able to organize such an offensive convinced many Americans that victory was impossible. There was a rising feeling among many Americans that the government was misleading the public about the war without an obvious beginning or end (Reference).

The US administration made no official attempt to censor the reporting in the Vietnam War, which was obvious following the coverage of such things like the Tet Offensive. The Vietnam War produced films and photographs that brought the horror home on a daily basis (Lester). As Paul Martin Lester, author of Photojournalism An Ethical Approach, said: these images from the Vietnam War were the "most graphically brutal in war-time photographic history" (Lester). Many photos that were taken during the Vietnam War not only shocked the public, but were partly responsible for helping to shift the American public's opinion against the war (Lester). The photos from the war also prove the incredible power photography and how it can reveal the brutal side of war (Digital). As Now You See It, Now You Don't author Michael Tennant said, "Pictures, whether still or moving, have shaped our opinions of the wisdom of both going to war and remaining at war" (Tennant).

The famous photo of a Viet Cong soldier being executed on February 1 1968, by General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief, has become one of the most recognizable photos of that time. Loan shot the suspect in the head on a public street in front of journalists. The photo sparked additional protest against America's involvement in the war (Lester). The execution provided another image that helped sway public opinion in the United States against the war (Vietnam War). At 1/500th of a second, Eddie Adams captured the moment of swift judgment by Loan and the brutal execution of the prisoner (Lester). The suspect was thought to have killed Loan's best friend, a police major, and knifing to death the major's wife and six children (Lester).

Another famous photo from the Vietnam War was the picture from Kent State University in Ohio, for many people this brought the war home, literally. The National Guard had been called to the campus to quiet some demonstrations that were being held against military involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia in 1970. The photo captured Mary Vecchio kneeling over the bloodied body of Jeffery Miller (Lester). Americans realized that not only was killing going on in Vietnam, now it was happening on our home soil. Many people thought the photo by college student using a borrowed camera (Lester) John Filo was the last straw. The photo, which was spread over newspaper front pages all over America, showed the public that if Americans started killing Americans over this war on homeland no less, maybe there was something wrong with the war after all (Cossa).

Yet another famous photo from Vietnam is of a nine-year-old girl, running naked and screaming in pain after a napalm attack on her village burned her (Digital). Another photo that helped shift public opinion was of a Buddhist monk calmly burning himself to death in protest of the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government. These were both photos that startled the American public and helped change their minds about the war. It revealed the truth of what was happening in Vietnam and they did not like what they saw.

Admiral Grant Sharp believed that the coverage of the Tet Offensive convinced the American public and the government that the war was being lost and the only option was to withdraw from Vietnam. Many Americans believe the war was fought through photos and horrifying stories which eventually led to the U.S. withdrawal. Whatever the backing for the decision, on January 15 1973, citing progress in peace negotiations, President Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam which was later followed by a withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. The Paris Peace Accords were later signed on January 27 1973, which officially ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict (Vietnam War).

Whatever the grounds behind the official reason for withdrawal from Vietnam, the media and photos from the war undoubtedly had an affect on the American public. Whether or not the American public's eventual overwhelming opposition to the war was part of the reason for withdrawal, can be argued.

Works Cited

Cossa, Frank. Photojournalism and the "War at Home". 19 October 2005.

Digital History, The Vietnam War. Online American History Book, Period: 1960's. 19 October 2005.

Kahrs, Kristian. "Lies, Deceit and Hypocrisy." May 1997. 19 October 2005.

LaborLawTalk: Vietnam War, Encyclopedia. LaborLawTalk.com. 3 December 2005.

Lester, Paul Martin. Chapter Four: Victims of Violence, Photojournalism An Ethical Approach. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, Hillsdale, 1991. Digital Version, 1999.

McLaughlin, Erin. "Television Coverage of the Vietnam War and the Vietnam" Veteran. December 3, 2001. August 2004. The Media and the Vietnam War. 19 October 2005.

Reference.com, Encyclopedia: Vietnam War. Copyright 2001-2005

Tennant, Michael. "Now You See It, Now You Don't." 27 May 2004. Strike the Root. 19 October 2005.

"Vietnam War." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Digital version. 19 October 2005.

"Walter Cronkite." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Digital version. 19 October 2005.