What role did television play in the Vietnam war?

Answer 1

Television let Americans back at home see what the war was really like. For example, President Johnson was telling the people of America that we were winning - when we were not. For the first time, television let Americans know the truth. Everyday people saw pictures and video of POWs (prisoners of war), dead Americans, dead Vietnamese, and the bombings of Vietnamese civilians.

Answer 2

It was the first truly publicised war, people at home could see what was going on without it being censored, this meant that there was a lot more opposition to it because people could see how truly horrible it was to be there.

Answer 3

The free and unfettered access that media was given during the war was

unprecedented. Reporters found that if they wanted to report the facts

they would have to skip the daily briefing called the "follies" and hop a

chopper ride to where the action was. This quickly indicated differences

between the facts and the Saigon briefing available MACV. Reporters had

to find creative ways to get the story out of the country since none of the

communications technology of today existed. When the folks in the States

began to see the war on the evening news there was a shift in the public

opinion about US involvement in Vietnam. The modern military learned a

real lesson on media control from the Falkland War. They now control the

flow of "real time" reporting to their advantage. The most famous example of medias effects during the war came during the Tet offensive. Film of the chief of police for Saigon shooting what appeared to be a random person was shown to the public. Something not commonly known or reported at the time the film footage was shown was that the shooter was the Chief of Police for Saigon, that the man shoot had been one of the member of a Vietnamese Communist Political Squad that had killed the Chief of Police's second in command (Including his second's family and children). The sound of the shoot was also a edited sound that was added because the camera at the time was not recording sound.

Answer 4

A picture is worth a thousand words.
Brought the Vietnam battlefield into the average American's living room (household) in living color, including the sound effects, and seldom censored (since the system was new at the time).