ABSTRACT
The Vietnam War is often used to demonstrate the power of the mass media to mobilize public opinion. The MacBride Report, for example, refers to the war as one of ‘the most recent examples of the press’s ability to unearth facts, to forge opinion and to encourage the people to act’ (MacBride 1981:197). Many Americans blame the media for ‘losing’ the war. Hawks and doves, despite their different perspectives, subscribe to this view. For hawks the media turned the people against the war by misrepresenting what was going on in Vietnam. Some argue that misrepresentation was the product of the media’s bias against the military effort. Robert Elegant advances this position: ‘Never before Vietnam had the collective policy of the media-and no less stringent a term will serve-sought by graphic and unremitting distortion to bring about the victory of the enemies of the correspondent’s own side’ (1979:26). Others argue that misrepresentation was not so much a product of political bias but the result of a lack of professionalism among the correspondents. Inaccuracy and distortion reflected ‘inexperience’ and ‘immaturity’. Reporters were described as ‘young men in a hurry, not willing or not having the time to check the facts’ (cited in Mercer, Mungham and Williams 1987:240).
