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This investigation will evaluate the question: To what extent did media coverage affect American public opinion of the Vietnam War? This exploration will focus on media reports during the Vietnam War and analyze the implications that news coverage had on public support for the war in the United States.
The first source that will be evaluated is Walter Cronkite’s editorial “We Are Mired in Stalemate” from his CBS Evening News report on February 27, 1968. The origin of this source is a summarizing report by Walter Cronkite, an American journalist and news anchor during the Vietnam War, of his findings in Vietnam after the Tet Offensive. The origin is valuable because Cronkite was very popular and was dubbed “the most trusted man in America” because he had built a reputation of objectivity as a news reporter. Consequently, when he shared his personal opinion on the Vietnam War, the American public was deeply impacted and grew doubtful of the reality of the war. The origin is also valuable because Cronkite had personal experience of what the war was truly like because he traveled to Vietnam to personally cover the Tet Offensive. His firsthand experience legitimized his opinion of the likely outcome of the war because he had accurate information to base his perspective on. However, the origin is limited by the fact that Cronkite was not a war strategy expert, so he may have misinterpreted the situation. The content of the source includes Cronkite giving a special report during the CBS Evening News called Report from Vietnam: Who, What, When, Where, Why? summarizing his visit to Vietnam. He ended his report with an editorial now known as “We Are Mired in Stalemate” where he explained that he believed the war was unwinnable. While Cronkite was in Vietnam, he was perturbed by what he was seeing in Vietnam conflicting with what President Johnson was reporting back home. The source’s purpose was to convince the American public that the Vietnam War was unwinnable and to persuade the United States government to instead look to negotiate an end to the war. This is valuable because it illustrates how the media portrayed the war, which influenced public perception of the war. However, it is limited in value because it only portrays what one media outlet was reporting during the war and it does not address any successes of the war. It is also limited in value because it does not portray media coverage before the Tet Offensive which limits the range of opinion to the second half of the war.
The second source that will be evaluated is George Moss’s 1990 book Vietnam: An American Ordeal. The origin of this source is valuable because Moss is a history professor at City College in San Francisco, specializing in United States History, and has written numerous books about America during the twentieth century which shows that Moss is well educated on the Vietnam War. Additionally, the book was published in 1990 which makes it valuable because Moss had access to an extensive range of sources, such as public polls, military stories, and actual media from the war, so he could generate a comprehensive analysis of the effect of the media during the Vietnam War. The origin is strengthened in its value by Moss being alive during the Vietnam War. He experienced media coverage of the war as an American citizen, which indicates he knows how the American people were affected by the press. However, Moss experiencing media coverage during Vietnam is also a limitation because he would have formed an opinion back then which suggests that his analysis of the media may be subjective. The content of this source includes Moss arguing against theorists who believe that media coverage caused the U.S. to lose the war in Vietnam. Moss asserts that public opinion was negative towards the war before news coverage became critical after the Tet Offensive. He states that the media changed its perception of the war to match public opinion rather than try to shape it. The purpose of Moss’s book is to provide a comprehensive record of the Vietnam War, which entails an examination of media coverage during the war where he argues that media coverage during the war did not significantly affect American public opinion. The purpose is valuable because it covers the entirety of the Vietnam War so Moss could make connections on the trends of American public opinion throughout the war. But the purpose is limited by the fact that Moss was writing a narrative of the Vietnam War and not specifically media coverage so he did not examine the media as extensively as he could have.
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