How did the Tet Offensive help change the
media coverage of the Vietnam War?
Lesson objectives
 To understand the change in media coverage of the
Vietnam War.
 To be able to explain the changes in media coverage of
the Vietnam War.
Editor of Life Magazine
1965 – ‘The Vietnam
War is worth
winning’
1967 – ‘The US is not
threatened by the
Communists in
Vietnam and this
war is not worth the
lives of young
Americans’
Early coverage of the Vietnam War
In the early years of
the Vietnam War, the
media stuck to the
official
government
line.
There were some
disagreements,
but
the media largely fell
in line up to 1965.
Early coverage of the Vietnam War
The US Army created
MACV
[Military
Assistance Command,
Vietnam]
which
handled
media
relations and up to
1968 relations were
good.
In return for MACV assistance, the media
promised not to reveal any information
that would help the enemy.
Harrison Salisbury reports
Harrison Salisbury was
a New York Times
journalist
and
in
December
1966
visited North Vietnam.
The first US journalist
to do so.
He reported on the
destruction to civilian areas
and the many civilian
casualties caused by US
bombing. This had always
been denied by the US
army.
The Credibility Gap
Harrison was the first
of many journalists to
question US policy and
conduct in Vietnam.
These
reports
helped
widen the ‘Credibility Gap’
– the distance between
what the US government
and army said and what the
people believed. The wider
the gap the less people
believed.
1968 – a change in reporting Vietnam
Seymour Hersch was
the first journalist to
break the story of My
Lai.
Initially, he found it difficult
for
newspapers
and
magazines to print his
findings. However, with the
Tet
Offensive,
editors
became more receptive to
covering story showing the
US in a dim light despite
commercial concerns.
1968 – Tet Offensive and the media
The Tet Offensive
marked the Vietnam
War being fought in
the cities right under
the media’s nose –
they could no longer
ignore the bad news
stories.
Journalists began to openly
ask difficult questions on
the US conduct of the war.
The Coverage of the US
Embassy siege in Saigon,
the summary execution of
a VC suspect amongst
other stories had a
significant impact on the
coverage of the war.
Impact of Walter Cronkite
February 1968 on the Tet Offensive – ‘What the Hell is going on? I
thought we were winning this war’
Impact of Walter Cronkite
February 1968 on Hue – ‘This war is unwinnable’
Impact of Walter Cronkite
If I have lost
Walter,
I
February
1968
on Hue
have lost Mr. Average
–
‘This
war
is
Citizen.
unwinnable’
Impact of television
Television was overtaking newspapers as the most important source for
Americans. It provided a more immediate and raw account of the Vietnam
War – although it can be edited like newspaper accounts.
Impact of media coverage of the
Vietnam War
Officials like Westmoreland
believed
the
increasingly
negative coverage of the war
undermined the war effort.
Many have supported this
view.
Impact of media coverage of the
Vietnam War
American
attitudes
were
Shocking scenes of violence
turning against the war by
were rarely shown on US TV.
1967 anyway. The media
Less than 25% of reports
reflected this changing view
showed dead or wounded.
rather than led it.
In a sample of 800 broadcasts,
only 16% of criticisms of
government policy came from
journalists.
Growing casualties and war
weariness were the reasons
why the support for the war
dropped not the media.
Research shows that between
1965 and 1970 only 76 TV
reports out of 2,300 showed
heavy fighting.