ABSTRACT
Television coverage of some of the fierce Tet battles highlighted the fact that Vietnam was America’s first televised war, the first war to be shown night after night in American living rooms. For years, color video had brought Americans the sights and sounds of men at war. The Vietnam War was also the first major war the United States had ever lost. Many prominent Americans believe that biased or distorted television news coverage of the war was a major cause of the U.S. defeat in Southeast Asia. That is, they believe that America lost history’s first televised war precisely because it was televised.
