ABSTRACT
Television (TV) news becoming a major force coincided not only with the Civil Rights Movement but also with the US military buildup in Vietnam. Many media and political experts have argued that by bringing grisly images of battle into the American living room, TV news played a key role in turning the public against the Vietnam War and, ultimately, in hastening the end of that conflict. TV correspondents in Vietnam, as well as their print counterparts, were free to go wherever they wanted and report whatever they found, for this was the first—and last—American war without military censorship. The TV image that, more than any other, burnt the brutalities of war into the consciousness of the American people was the filmed execution of a Vietnamese man on a Saigon street a few days after the Tet Offensive began. Although television existed during the Korean War, it hadn't yet evolved into a major news medium.
