Photojournalism documenting the Vietnam War between United States and Vietnam

Photojournalism was a defining feature of the Vietnam War era, bringing informative but usually horrific images from the front lines to the pages of print and the tubes of television. Therefore, photojournalism was instrumental in shaping the American public sentiment towards the war. Imagery laden with bloodshed and brutality impacted the minds and hearts of Americans, giving fuel to the already fiery anti-war, counterculture movement. Moreover, the Vietnam War was the first televised war. Not only were powerful black and white still shots available, as they were throughout the Korean War. During the height Vietnam War in 1968, about 60% of Americans watched the wartime coverage on television (Kennedy, 2008). Photojournalism during the war in Vietnam altered pubic perception of the war and related social and political consciousness; it also affected the profession of photography, photojournalism, and the nature of the Fifth Estate in general. Journalists and the public were starting to think critically about the role that photographers played in the political process: did they report or did they actively shape public consciousness? Photojournalism became an ethical domain, in which the medium and the message both presented moral conundrums. As Hubert Cookman & Stolley (2008) point out, "for the first time, combat photography was perceived as being against American war policy," (p. 132).

The most controversial aspect of photojournalism during the War in Vietnam was the detail. "Photojournalists brought Vietnam into the nation's living rooms as no other previous war. Americans watched as their soldiers set fire to thatched huts with Zippo lighters. They saw photographs of wounded and dead GIs as well as the bodies of Vietnamese civilians and opponents," (Hubert Cookman & Stolley, 2008, p. 132). The photographs moved many Americans to make a moral judgment about the act of war itself, and gave rise to the existential questions that surrounded the Cold War and anti-Communist sentiment. Some, especially on the political right in the United States, have accused photojournalism of causing America's loss in Vietnam (Hubert Cookman & Stolley, 2008).

Photojournalism in Vietnam created what Kennedy (2008) calls "a visual grammar for looking at Vietnam." The meat of this visual grammar was the technique itself: the tools of the trade. Photography had become increasingly advanced technologically by the time the war broke out. Compositional techniques and strategies for shooting also advanced the art of photojournalism. Therefore, the images themselves were more visually captivating. Even when death and morbidity were their subjects, the images had an unmistakable aesthetic. As Gist (2012) puts it, "An unprecedented level of media coverage made the Vietnam war a watershed moment in the discipline of photography."

"The use of photographs to record or suppress events, or to support or contest a claim, is nothing new, but in Vietnam the unprecedented degree of coverage of this politically divisive war brought these issues into sharp relief," (Gist, 2012). Media companies understood the power of their imagery, using it to secure viewership. The media also unabashedly manipulated their viewers' moods to create sensationalist journalism, and a level of graphic reporting that was unprecedented. " The media elites were very sensitive" to its own power to shape American values (Kennedy, 2008). When media elites had their own political agenda, they were able to execute that agenda with a greater force than would have been possible without the power of the photographers on their payroll.

The frequency of reporting during the Vietnam War was also an instrumental factor that motivated media organizations to increase the number of photojournalists on the ground in Vietnam. A liberal policy towards photojournalists enabled a great influx into the war zones. "The large numbers of photographers and the relative autonomy that they enjoyed contributed to a new political economy of war imagery that emerged in relation to the Vietnam War," (Kennedy, 2008). The new political economy that Kennedy (2008) refers to is "one that was very immediately responsive to and regulated by the American and other Western markets' large appetites for war imagery." Viewers expected to turn on their televisions daily -- perhaps not with as much frequency as now given the twenty-four hour cable news cycle and the Internet -- but with a level of frequency previously unknown. Media agencies, keen to lure viewers for their own budgetary reasons but also to garner journalistic recognition, fed the cycle of continual reporting on the war.

Reporting through the lens was, as much wartime reporting, one-sided in nature. The reports were, for example, only from South Vietnam. This sent the message that did not go unnoticed: that the war was a murky and nebulous one in which the American government might be hiding something. "The absence of the North Vietnamese in so much of this photography was a fitting visual reflection of a war of insurgency, with no clearly defined frontline or enemy," (Kennedy, 2008).The soldiers were keenly aware of how the presence of photographers might influence their actions, that of their fellow soldiers, or even of the enemy. Some might have also thought it through more, extending the fact that the presence of photographers meant that Americans at home were seeing the truth about the war. The war was an increasingly senseless and futile endeavor. "Many soldiers, aware of how photographs were influencing public perceptions of the war, were wary of any media presence (Gist, 2012). The soldiers were not immune to viewing the photographs, either. Those sent home, or those about to be deployed, might have reconstructed a version of the war that was much different from the story given to them by their commanding officers. With an increase in disillusionment among soldiers in Vietnam, more and more Americans were burning their draft cards. Low morale in Vietnam became a major issue, and photojournalism was instrumental in fomenting the necessary tension that ensued in the minds and hearts of all Americans.