Vietnam War Outcome Influenced by the Media

Term 3 Paper The Media and Vietnam war The Vietnam struggle was a war of mass destruction, go away Vietnam to do bitterly divided and claiming the galore(postnominal) lives of Vietnamese civilians as tumefy as American soldiers. Out of all(a) the wars in American hi fable, the Vietnam War was the first war to be broadly televised and covered by the media. It came to be k nowadaysn as the first television receiver War. Journalists began to pour into Vietnam from all over the nation, to cover the lives of the American Soldiers as well as Vietnamese civilians.As television brought horrendous images of the war into American living rooms, the perception of an American solider as a hero slowly became the image of the American enemy. Thus, the media is a major component part that resulted to the Vietnamization of the conflict, come ining the end of the war during the fall of Saigon. Television was the main rise of news for the American public, and perhaps the most warp on the pub lic opinion of the war. A study showed that In 1950, entirely nine percent of homes owned a television. By 1966, this rose to 93 percent. (McLaughlin). As television popularity rose, Americans began to depend of television as an accurate source of how they understood the war. In addition, no censorship was established to limit the total of information being put out to the American public. In the website article, Vietnam A Censored War, John a. Cloud states the fact that there was no armament censorship, there was still censorship among the government (Cloud). Due to lack of censorship, journalists could follow the military into trash and report their observations without formal censorship. on that pointfore, journalists that experienced the violent combat were able to present the public with more graphic images that the nation has forever seen. One of the most influential journalists was Walter Cronkite, Cronkite turned against the war and called for peace negotiations. (NPR) . As an anchor for CBS Evening News, Cronkite do his statement against the war. This influenced all another(prenominal) journalists to follow his lead. As a result, journalists reported the actions of the soldiers negatively. Gradually, Support for the war began to pass by the fall of 1967.One of the most turning moments of the Vietnam War was the Tet Offensive in 1968. During the Tet Offensive, the media presented images of soldiers sweeping through over one-hundred southern Vietnamese cities. After the televised reportage of the Battle of Tet, majority Americans withdrew their support for the war. In the book Eyewitness Vietnam War, full admiral Grant Sharp argued the reality of the 1968 Tet Offensive was that Hanoi had taken a big gamble and lost on the battlefield, but they won a solid physiological victory in the United States. (Murray 18).This proves that, the media was creating false claims to kick up the tidy sum into pushing the government to stop the war. The media also portrayed the fill out as a defeat for the United States, the media, not the military substantiate the gro march ong perception that the U. S was unable to with the war. (McLaughlin). With this advantage, the north Viet Cong was using the media to win the charity of the American public, so that they would turn against their government. The anti-war movement by 1965 influenced many Americans to oppose their governments elaboration in the war.Thus, after the Tet offensive, the get of protesters skyrocketed (Langer 235). One example is the Kent State butcher, which led to the death of four students. There was a significant national response to the shooting, such as the finale of schools thought the United States due to student strikes. However, the most damaging event for a U. S soldiers reputation was the massacre of My Lai, images of unwarranted children, women, and families flooded newspapers and television. (Murray 23). When the incident became public, it promoted the widespread outrage thought the world.The American solider was now portrayed as monstrous killers with no qualms some killing Vietnamese civilians. (Cloud). Critics of the war created accusations towards the soldiers such as drug use, rape, and barbaric acts. This led the community to question the purpose of Americas involvement of the war. The media was also employ to expose government information regarding the Vietnam War. There was a conspiracy that, an allege attack on the U. S spy ship (USS Maddox) was purposely created to become the pretext for war in Vietnam. Also known as the disjuncture of Tonkin, the event granted congress permission to invade Vietnam.American journalist, Nigel Sheehan exposed the documents that told the verity about the start of the war. As areporterforThe New York Times,in 1971, Sheehan obtained the classifiedPentagon PapersfromDaniel Ellsberg. (Shah). Sheehan collaborated with Ellsberg (a former pentagon staff) to publish the series of articl es that contained the history of the U. S involvement in the war. The official secret history of the war would bring on that administration officials had drafted the gulf of Tonkin resolution themselves, two months before the attack of Maddox. (Shah).This caused the people to become outraged, censuring the government for the start of the war instead of the Viet Cong. An article from Media impound in 1994, explains that the heavy reliance on U. S government officials as sources of information and reluctance to question official statements on national security issues, led to a lot of inaccurate media reporting (Langer 256). Many stories about atrocities of the war were witnessed, but were initially never reported. Even if atrocities were reported, they were perceived as a tragedy because the government did not want to take the blame.For example, when the My Lai Massacre was reported on the Newsweek the banner headline was An American Tragedy (Murray). This caused sympathy for the i nvader and deflected from the truth about the atrocities. Above all, the atrocities were in fact, a Vietnamese tragedy. With the influence of media, the Americans failed to have public support for the war to carry on. Moreover, tensions betwixt the news media and the Nixon administration only increased as the war dragged on. Finally, Nixon was pressured to see to it a resolution to end the war.As a result, on November 3, 1969, PresidentRichard M. Nixonmade a televised speech laying out his policy toward Vietnam, promising to observe to support the South Vietnamese government and held out a cast for the withdrawal of American combat promenade. (Wyatt). With this he created Vietnamization to slowly withdraw troops out of Vietnam, along with plans to end the war. In brief, the media was a major factor that motivated the American public to pressure the government to stop involvement of the war. As a result, the media is one of the factors that resulted in Americas constitute of t he war.Works cited Cloud, John A. Vietnam A Censored War. Thecrimson. com. The Harvard Crimson, 9 Mar. 1991. Web. Considered, All Things. Cronkite on Vietnam War NPR. NPR subject Public Radio News & Analysis, World, US, Music & Arts NPR. Web. 17 Feb. 2012. . Langer, Howard. The Vietnam War An Encyclopedia of Quotations / Howard J. Langer. Westport, CT Greenwood, 2005.Print. McLaughlin, Erin. The Media and the Vietnam War. The Warbirds Forum AVG Flying Tigers, Brewster Buffaloes, Flying Wings, lacquer at War, Vietnam, and Other Military History Stuff. Web. 17 Feb. 2012. http//www. warbirdforum. com/media. htm. Murray, Stuart. Eyewitness Vietnam War. NY DK Pub. , 2005. Print. Shah, Anup. Media, Propaganda and Vietnam spheric Issues. international Issues Social, Political, Economic and Environmental Issues That Affect Us All spherical Issues. 24 Oct. 2003. Web. 17 Feb. 2012. http//www. globalissues. rg/article/402/media-propaganda-and-vietnam. Cloud, John A. Vietnam A Censored War. Thecrimson. com. The Harvard Crimson, 9 Mar. 1991. Web. http//www. thecrimson. com/article/1991/3/9/vietnam-a-censored-war-pbybou-cant/ Considered, All Things. Cronkite on Vietnam War NPR. NPR National Public Radio News Analysis, World, US, Music Arts NPR. Web. 17 Feb. 2012. http//www. npr. org/templates/story/story. php? storyId=1147965. Langer, Howard. The Vietnam War An Encyclopedia of Quotations / Howard J. Langer.Westport, CT Greenwood, 2005. Print. McLaughlin, Erin. The Media and the Vietnam War. The Warbirds Forum AVG Flying Tigers, Brewster Buffaloes, Flying Wings, japan at War, Vietnam, and Other Military History Stuff. Web. 17 Feb. 2012. . Murray, Stuart. Eyewitness Vietnam War. NY DK Pub. , 2005. Print. Shah, Anup. Media, Propaganda and Vietnam worldwide Issues. Global Issues Social, Political, Economic and Environmental Issues That Affect Us All Global Issues. 24 Oct. 2003. Web. 17 Feb. 2012.