The role of the media in Vietnam: the television and the war news - Research Paper Example

?Insert Insert Insert Insert The Role of the Media in Vietnam: The Television and the War News. Introduction Growing up in the 20th century was not without the eventual realities emanating from stories of war and the eventual fatalities. As a young child, my greatest mystery was how all this information could reach our home area and my folks discussed the details as if they had been to the war torn areas. The most notable experience was the stories about the Fall of Saigon and the unification of the Vietnam country. Prior to all these, there was a lot of war stories of what happened in Vietnam. The Americans got the happenings of the war in Vietnam from the television in the comfort of their living rooms. This was made a reality by the noble exercise conducted by the media. But the main critical aspect that hovered in my minds was; how accurate were the happenings miles away being reported on televisions. How best can we get the real events and the intensity of the war in Vietnam? Talk of the victims of war, the veteran soldiers or even the guerrilla soldiers. These are individuals who were at the core of the happenings during the fighting. Soldiers of war are regarded and respected highly back home with regard to the harsh conditions encountered in war, and the veterans are viewed as winners but many fail to understand the real situation they have gone through or what they fathom. This essay seeks to comprehend the role played by the media in outlining the Second Indochina War, how critical the news that the televisions brought to the Americans was and its impact to them. The media and the Vietnam War Media per se has a role to play in relaying the exact happenings in times of war. The Americans could view the atrocities in Vietnam and get the picture of war. Movies relayed the war scenes, but the biggest question remains, did the media bring the real picture of the war in Vietnam at the time of war? How best did they cover the war, and did it affect the American’s view towards the war? Many are the questions that linger in the minds of scholars and the role played by media during the Vietnam War. Michael Arlen (cited in Halin 103) disagrees with the notion that the battle scenes brought in the living rooms make the hazards of war “real” to the civilian audience. He argues that they are diminished partially by the showcasing from the TV. In America, the horrors of war entered the living rooms for the first time during the Vietnam War. For two decades, the American public watched the destruction of villages, burning to death of Vietnamese children and bodies of dead soldiers being brought back home. Women and children suffered a great deal in the hands of the Northern forces but the media only portrayed the fighting made by the American soldiers. Women hid in ditches full of dirty water to safeguard themselves and their children from the intense bombardment arrayed by the Viet Cong specifically at Bao Trai 20 miles west of Saigon as evidenced by the second photograph above. Laurence (2002, p.6) describes the sufferings of the Vietnamese families in the atrocities experienced. But how did the American television air the news? It was an American war fighting against communism and save the Southerners from the “harsh” Northerners. Terrified burnt children run away from the war scene Women and children hiding in a ditch (Accessed from http://pictureshistory.blogspot.com/2010/07/stunning-pictures-from-vietnam-war.html) The positivity and negativity of the media coverage in Vietnam The coverage of the war and the resultant impact on public opinion has been a topic of discussion for the past decades by scholars and journalists, yet they do not have the first hand information on the war. The conflict was relayed as a mission for the Americas out for the best. Wyatt (81) describes the media to have labeled the early conflict as “good guys shooting Reds” account so as to fit the cold war tales that were in progress. This outlines the distortions that to some extent the media had to the real events of the war. Therefore, the most qualified party to debate and give a clear picture in the current American set up on this are the war veterans. Journalist at Saigon made their reports daily on facts concerning the battle, casualties and the robust morale of the troops. Conversely, in the real situation, it was only the soldier who could fathom the true reality of the war. The media distortions, as a result of television’s misrepresentations during the war led to the defeat of America, not necessarily on the ground (battlefield) but also on the political and social arena. Most interviews conducted to the veterans of war from Vietnam describe overly negative television coverage that helped turn American public against the American troops deployed in Vietnam (Laurence, 2001, p. 8). Amid the clear information that was passed by the media to the Americans, there was no clear and objective coverage of the war as a whole to represent the entirety of the Vietnam War situation. At the start of the war, media coverage mainly supported the U.S. involvement in the war, but the news dramatically changed the fame it was attached to with The Tet Offensive of 1998 (Boylan 3). According to Small (161), the exaggerations of military progress were realized later after the Tet were offensive and contributed largely to the decline of support towards the presidential policies in Vietnam. Faas (1) outlines the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of Eddie Adams showing the executions of Vietcong in 1968. Faas analyzes the black and white picture to understand clearly the real atrocities of the war. He described this revelation moment as “frozen” and felt the photograph had so much to describe the brutality of the Vietnam War. The television coverage of the massacre at My Lai tainted the image of the U.S. soldier reputation. Though initial reports showed that the operation only killed 100 enemy soldiers; it was revealed later that the American troops led by First Lt. William Calley killed up to 350 civilian Southerners (Hammond 192). This resulted to the anti-war movement gaining more attention in America while the U.S soldier was left alone in Vietnam. Amid the hidden realities of the war, this photograph was aroused realization decades after its happening prompting more understanding to the real happenings of the war. But the query remains on how sufficient the analysis would have been. The specific happenings still find their disturbed comfort in the minds of veterans and war victims; the picture only gives an overview of the war. The media intensely influenced negatively on the conduct of the war to the extent of hampering the American field commanders and policy makers. It brought about two kinds of war, the one fought by troops in the field and the media war. This brought about a shift in perspective; tearing the country apart but at the same time bringing the country together in new and diverse ways. Amid the negativity presented by the media, the positive side was the American getting an overview of the war’s happenings and sparking against the American government from using power, and advocating for the rights of free expression and mainly against the violence of the war itself. Media can be termed to have impacted to a great deal the behavior of the society and left a lasting mark regarding the perception and demand to be informed from the influence of the social turmoil. The media brought out a controversial issue that catalyzed the provoking of social structure. The media played in empowering the perspective and decisions of people concerning the war. The rising of people and unity in protest and the pressure from the media shifted the government to impose the censorship and stretch the limits to the extents of how far the rights to free expression of the citizen could go. The Television and War Groll (15) outlines that there was a massive public that hugely relied on television for information and had more trust to it than the traditional press. According to Bonier, Champlin and Kolly (18), only nine percent of homes in America owned a television set, the figure rose to 93% in 1966 giving considerable statistics of people viewing the happenings in Vietnam. The public viewed the TV coverage as more credible owing to its immediacy and supposed authenticity. Conversely, the American government blamed the media and specifically the Television coverage as the trigger to anti-war sentiments. Hallin (106) outlines how the majority of Americans relied on television for news unlike the newspaper. He states that by 1974, 64% of respondents to a survey conducted by Roper Organization for Television Information Office from 1964 to 1972 opted for television news whereas the newspaper statistics dropped to a mere 50% from 56% in 1964. This shows that, with the eventual increase in Vietnam War, the number of Americans tuning to watch television news as their Primary source was on the rise. What is so captivating concerning the television to capture a higher proportion of citizens watching its news? The secret lies in what Neuman, Just and Crigler (56) described as its ability to be “consistently evaluated as more attention grabbing, personally relevant, interesting, surprising and emotionally involving. This has been attributed to two elements of visuals and personality. The visual element allowed viewers to be incorporated into the actual war field with aired images of battles and deaths making them feel as part of the action. The intensity in the visuals helped expound on the complexity of the war. The trust of news anchors and reporters increased; as we evidenced by Hallin (106) of Walter Cronkite being referred to as the most trusted man in America in the course of the war. The trust triggered the American to view the war with regard to their perceptions of the television news personalities. Hence, the Americans hugely relied on television for images and accurate accounts the War in Vietnam, yet what they viewed was an edited 30 minutes version of an enormously edited complicated war. The war veteran and victims of war can give an efficient account of the accounts of the war. Though the media was heavily relied for information, it cannot be ascertained to have conclusively given out facts and the real war situation. According to John Laurence, a CBS reporter covering the war between 1965 to 1970, the truth was rarely reported, the reporters decided where to go, what to observe and film and not to film, the questions to ask and how to depict what they observed (Larence, 2001, p. 8). Anderson (70) portrays the stress and extreme dedication of men and women treating the wounded. The television well relayed the news on war happenings but in the real sense many South Vietnamese were suffering with brutal injuries and lack of care. The extent of civilians and soldiers suffering during the war times was elaborate, but the media failed to capture this during the time of war. The essence behind the realities of the fighting called for great humanitarian intervention that could have been fostered by the works of the reporters with effective news coverage. Conclusion With the intensification of the televised news and its popularity growth in the two decades of Vietnam War, Americans mainly depended on the visuals from the television to identify themselves with the war happenings in Vietnam. The images so much relied on by the Americans for information rarely presented the true reality of the situation in Vietnam. The realities of war are complex, bloody and brutal and cannot be effectively represented by a thirty minutes presentation of the news the Americans relied on (Andregg 7). On the same note, the impact made by the television news cannot go unnoticed. The insight of the war presented to the Americans stimulated a sense of fighting for free expression and called for expurgation by the government. This extensively contributed to voicing the sufferings of the Vietnamese and end of the cold war in the region. Reference List Anderson, David, The Columbia History of Vietnam War. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. Andregg, Michael, Inventing Vietnam: The War in Film and Television. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991. Print. Bonier, David E. Champlain, Steven M. and Kolly, Timothy S. the Vietnam Veteran, A History of Neglect. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1984. Print. Boylan, Trish, The Role of the Media in the Vietnam war. 2007. Web, 19th March 2012. Faas, Horst, The Saigon Execution. The Digital Journalist, 2004. Web 19th March 2012 Groll, Morena, Vietnam War Coverage on U.S. Television Newscasts. Berlin: GRIN Verlag, 2004. Hallin, Daniel C. the Uncensored War; The Media and Vietnam. Los Angles: California University of California Press, 1986. Print. Hammond, William. Report the Vietnam: Media and the Military at War. Lawrence: Kansas University Press of Kansas, 1998. Print. Laurence, John. History Today, A Failed Truth- a Reporter’s View of Viet Nam. Gale Group, 2001. Laurence, John, The Cat from hue, A Vietnam War Story. New York: Public affairs, 2002. Print. Russel, Neuman, W. Just, Marion R. and Crigler, Ann N. Common Knowledge: News & the Construction of Political Meaning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print. Small, Melvin, Antiwarriors: the Vietnam War and the Battle for America’s Heart and Minds. Oxford: Scholarly Resources, Inc. 2004. Wyatt, Clarence R., Papers Soldiers: The American Press and the Viet Nam War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Print. Appendices Appendix I: The Vietnam War Facts The Vietnam War started in 1955 and ended in 30th April in 1975 with the fall of Saigon after capture by the Spanish-French armies. North Vietnam was affiliated to the communist rule South Vietnam was non-communist. Appendix II: Names of the war Vietnam War/Second Indochina War/Vietnam Conflict The war was fought by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and the U.S. military against the Vietnam People’s Army (North Vietnamese army) and Viet Cong (National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam-NVL: a South Vietnamese Communist Guerrilla Force) Appendix III: Important dates in Vietnam War January 1, 1955 Direct U.S. aids to South Vietnam begins Cold war begins Diem attacks Binh Xuyen and Hoa Hao in March and with U.S. support refuses general elections called for by General Accord. October, 1955 Republic of Vietnam recognized with Ngo D. Diem as the first president January 1961 John F. Kennedy asserts and approves continual Vietnam counterinsurgency. November 1, 1963 Diem overthrown and assassinated 1965 Bombing of the North starts (Operation Rolling Thunder) 1966 U.S. troop’s strength goes to 385,000 1967 Thieu; elected as President and Ky; as VP of Viet Nam 1968 TET offensive 29-30th January 1970 U.S. invades Cambodian sanctuaries January 27, 1973 Agreement to end the war and peace restoration signed in Paris. Last US troops in Vietnam leaves. March 9, 1975 The People’s Army of Viet Nam (PAVN) offenses in the South starts April 30, 1975 Fall of Saigon. (Accessed from ) Read More