Media Power and the Vietnam War: Shaping Public Opinion

Introduction: Television and the Vietnam War

The power of the media has long been understood, and part of that power lies in shaping popular opinion. The media can show emotionally poignant images, give a platform to expert authorities, and together these two factors can influence the minds and hearts of people. This was particularly true during the era of the Vietnam War, sometimes referred to as America's first "television war" (Hillesheim, 2017). In 1965, nearly every household in America owned a television (90%) and depended on it to receive the bulk of their news (Hillesheim, 2017). Television was a new technology used for broadcasting news and information, and was not at this time subject to censorship or comparable media laws. This meant that the average American had unparalleled access to the Vietnam War.

In some ways, this freedom of access and information was a once-in-a-lifetime event, and certainly something that would not occur today. Seeing uncensored images and footage of the atrocities of war is both a blessing and a curse: it is a blessing to receive such candor about what is actually happening overseas, but it will almost inevitably affect the human heart, causing the average person to lose sight of the broader rationale for being at war. This paper discusses how the media had an undeniable influence on Americans' opinion of the Vietnam War and how it moved most Americans toward wanting to withdraw from the conflict or rendered them unable to see the benefit of U.S. participation.

Growing Coverage and Shifting Trust

It is important to bear in mind that the media's influence and interest in Vietnam was gradual at first. When the war began, there were few reports on the small country — only occasional pieces about the growth of communism within the nation (Ronn, 2014). This changed at the end of 1960, when many civilians died in an attack waged against President Diem. That event prompted more reporters to be sent to Vietnam. For many Americans, this coup, and the civilian lives it claimed, had a humanizing impact on their view of the war. From that point on, "the war started to come to many American living rooms and usually with bad news. On the media, the battle of Ap Bac was described as a debacle of the South Vietnamese Army. The Buddhist Crisis, highlighted by the famous picture of Thich Quang Duc's self-immolation, portrayed Diem's regime as brutal and dictatorial" (Ronn, 2014). Scholars have argued that the more the details of the war were broadcast into homes across the nation, the lower public support fell. Other scholars contend that support for a war decreases over time as a function of collective human behavior, independent of anything specific to the Vietnam War.

It is also important to note that during the years of the war, television was becoming an increasingly trusted news source. Roper surveys administered at the time asked Americans whom they would trust if they received conflicting accounts of a particular story: 48 percent said television, while only 21 percent said newspapers (McLaughlin). These results are not surprising for the era. Americans were connecting nightly with news anchors who made a human connection over the television set, appearing in people's homes like trusted friends.

"The visual element of television allows viewers to feel as if they are part of the action. When news programs aired images of battles and death, Americans at home felt as if they too were in the jungles of Vietnam. Additionally, intense visuals helped explain the complex nature of war to Americans who could not understand the military's technical language" (McLaughlin). The media thus gave Americans a heightened sense of immediacy with the Vietnam War, and Americans placed their total trust in these anchors — with Walter Cronkite quickly being dubbed the most trusted man in America (McLaughlin). This high level of trust set the stage for these personalities to exert influence on how many citizens perceived the war. Many argue that it created a dependence on television for images, perspectives, and accounts of the war's realities. In reality, viewers were watching carefully edited, half-hour programs shaped by very real human bias about an enormously complex conflict.

Another element that made this situation more complex is that television is an industry like any other: it is motivated by profits before public service. The professionals running the nightly news wanted high ratings and career advancement, giving them personal incentives that shaped how stories were told. Producers and reporters have long tried to make the news more entertaining by emphasizing heroism, excitement, or conflict. Some scholars have argued that television news did not cover Vietnam extensively until the number of American troops was elevated to 175,000 in the summer of 1965, when the war was considered more "dramatic" (Hallin, 1986). "Combat, interviews with American soldiers, and helicopter scenes all provided the television news industry with the drama that it required. The networks set up permanent bureaus in Saigon and sent hundreds of correspondents there throughout the war" (McLaughlin).

Initially, the media shaped a positive opinion of the war among Americans by presenting it in overly simplistic terms that cast the American soldier in a favorable light. Soldiers were portrayed as "good guys shooting reds" — a familiar narrative of the wholesome American military man fighting communism (McLaughlin). During this period, American soldiers served as primary sources for reporters and were portrayed almost universally as heroic. The editorial slant was almost always anti-communist; if any entity was vilified, it was the war itself, not the soldiers. It is no surprise, then, that American public opinion of the war remained generally positive during this phase: it was seen as an unfortunate situation that nevertheless had to be done — a necessary evil.

The Tet Offensive

The general turning point in this coverage occurred during the autumn of 1967. At that time, the nightly news audience was enormous — around 50 million people watched television news each evening (Bonier et al., 1984). The lack of censorship was part of what drew such a large audience and initially bolstered support for the war, but it ultimately became the very force that caused that support to erode. Journalists overseas covered the war intrepidly and began showing the public two elements that chipped away at its backing: graphic combat and visibly disturbed soldiers.

The Tet Offensive stands as one of the most concrete moments in history demonstrating the damage that can occur when the media reports inaccuracies in the name of ratings (Just & Bates, 2000). If one views the nightly news as a kind of show, by 1968 it was time to shake up coverage of the Vietnam War to re-engage perhaps bored viewers. News stations across the United States portrayed the Tet Offensive as a North Vietnamese victory, when it was actually a U.S. military victory (Just & Bates, 2000). North Vietnamese forces suffered tremendous casualties and lost a large portion of their manpower. "Television, however, portrayed the attack as a brutal defeat for the U.S.; the media, not the military, confirmed the growing perception that the U.S. was unable to win the war" (McLaughlin). No one wants to support what appears to be the losing side: portraying the Vietnam War as an unwinnable endeavor instantly transformed the entire American presence overseas into something dangerous, wasteful, and destructive of young lives, military resources, and money.

The Tet Offensive definitively soured many Americans against the war, and many news stations continued to broadcast their particular biases, which their trusting audiences readily adopted. Consider the following statement made by Walter Cronkite: "To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To say that we are mired in a bloody stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory conclusion" (Hallin, 1986, p. 170). The clarity of hindsight helps reveal just how problematic a statement that was: Cronkite was not a military expert or a former general. He was not qualified to make such a pronouncement, and his remarks only served to bias a trusting public.

Conclusion

The Vietnam War was one of the most complex and enduring wars in the history of the United States, and public reaction to it was a process that evolved as the war itself evolved. When the first troops were sent overseas, no one in America could have anticipated that U.S. involvement would span two decades. The widespread adoption of television and the presence of trusted nightly news anchors had a profound impact on how Americans perceived the war. Without censorship, households across the country were confronted with the atrocities of war right in their living rooms — an enormous amount for the average American to process.

As U.S. involvement changed, so did American perceptions of it. Anchors like Walter Cronkite earned the deep trust of millions and used that trust to shape perceptions of the war. The anti-war movement gained momentum and grew more influential with each passing year. Events like the devastation at My Lai solidified public repulsion toward the war and entrenched a widespread mistrust of government. Taken together, these developments illustrate how the media — through a combination of genuine reporting, editorial bias, and landmark revelations — fundamentally transformed American sentiment about the Vietnam War over the course of two decades.