Vietnam: The Reality Show

The 1900’s are strongly known as an era of industrialization for our country. Technology skyrocketed, providing us with new inventions and modern lifestyles.  The United States was at its prime, but although we flourished in technological advances throughout this time period, we also suffered many wars along the way. From the very beginning of the 1900’s to its end, we experienced war; each accompanied by the media, recording it’s every move. The media was behind every single war, but one, was particularly different from the rest: The Vietnam War of 1965.

America’s rise in technology helped create inventions to dramatically revolutionize the media, using film and the television as its new and powerful source to the people. The Vietnam War came along as the perfect opportunity to put these inventions to use, eventually leading to it being the first war to ever be televised without military censorship... and the very last. This changes America forever.  

Imagine watching a battlefield in your living room, seeing U.S. soldiers die and get shot with your very own eyes and no censorship to ease the violence, making you feel as if you were by their side. This was a much different experience from simply flipping through pages in the newspapers with little images provided. People were exposed to footage with sound, allowing them to hear the voices of these soldiers and see the scared expressions on their faces every single night. 

The television quickly became the most powerful form of media of all time. People began putting down the newspapers and tuning into their televisions for their daily dose of news. About 35 million watched every night, but the viewers began to have different perspectives of war after watching it from the comfort of their homes. The war was no longer viewed as a positive necessary step for our nation, but as an unorganized bloodbath with no meaning. 

“Television gave the American people vivid images of certain aspects of the war in Vietnam which they could never have gotten from reading newspapers and periodicals. It made them see the war as a meaningless and destruction of lives and landscapes” – Edward Shills, The Vietnam Legacy

“Television brought the Vietnam war into our living rooms on a nightly basis. They produced close-up sensational images of war. American viewers saw the real experience of war transformed into theatrics on the twenty-one-inch screen. And they recoiled.” – Edwin Newman, NBC

Journalists put their lives on a thin line by going to the war and running alongside troops to capture whatever news they could about the war. There were three main competitive networks, which provided news: NBC, ABC, and CBS. Each network had many journalists and cameramen at the frontlines of war to feed America with whatever information possible to compete with the others. It was an obvious competition on who could provide more vivid information, images, and footage of the war and the networks did a well job in providing all three.