Vietnam to Desert Storm: Topics, Sources Change

Since the American Revolution, the United States press and military have shared a constantly evolving, often adversarial relationship. During the Revolutionary War, the military paid little attention to the content of news reports regarding its activities. With the development of the telegraph in the 1850s, though, the Civil War was the first example in U.S. history of systemized government-sanctioned censorship of the press during wartime.' Censorship policies by the government in later U.S. conflicts generally followed the same pattern. As news gathering and reporting technologies evolved, so did the government's policies of information filtering and restriction. In Vietnam, though, the press was given much more freedom to report than ever before. Regardless of whether the media or the government and military were to blame for the decrease of public support in Vietnam, the tensions that developed between the two parties directly resulted in radical changes in the way the press was allowed to cover later conflicts. Following Vietnam, the military immediately began making preparations for dealing with the press in future conflicts. Because many military leaders believed that the conduct of the Vietnam War was impaired by negative media coverage, there was a concentrated effort to create effective guidelines for the press in future wars. Sessions were held at the Pentagon, along with the war and naval colleges, on how to effectively "handle" the media in future conflicts'. In other words, fostering positive public opinion during future conflicts was nearly as high a priority as effective military strategy. The press, on the other hand, seemed caught off guard in the conflicts following Vietnam. Media Coverage of the Vietnam Conflict A divide exists among researchers and observers regarding the role and impact of the media in Vietnam. Some conclude that negative media coverage of the Vietnam war contributed to the eventual failure of the government's policies. Others believe that the press only reported what was really happening, which eventually exposed the mistakes of the government and military. A consensus seems to exist among all studies, however, that the relationship between the press and the military in Vietnam, along with the news coverage that resulted, had a great impact, both positively and negatively, on the government's policies in Vietnam.3 The tensions between the press and military in Vietnam were important in determining not only the outcome of that conflict, but in shaping the way news was collected and reported in later U.S. military involvements. The policy of the military toward press coverage was relaxed in Vietnam, partially because war had never been declared. After much debate by military leaders, it was decided that without a declaration of war, media could not be restricted by the U.S. military, and they would be free to move about the country at their own expense. Unlike other conflicts, there were no official guidelines for coverage, and decisions were left largely to unit commanders in the field.4 This lack of a cohesive policy left the media to forage for their own angle on the story and allowed the military to lose control of information being released to the American public. Research into coverage of the Vietnam conflict has centered on possible prejudices volume of coverage6 and the general nature of war news.7 The agenda for public media consumption was set by the press in Vietnam, and the result was not satisfactory to the military. As noted, the end of the Vietnam conflict set in motion a string of decisions regarding press policy in future conflicts, and the clear intent was to allow military officials to set the agenda for the press and the public. At least one study of the possible prejudice in the television coverage of the Vietnam war from 1969 to 1970 found no clear bias against the Nixon Administration's policies in Vietnam in the 1969 and 1970 broadcasts of either of two major networks. …