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Did the Media Lose the War?
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12313 |
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BOOK WORLD
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1 / 1987 |
2,426 Words |
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Harry M. Zubkoff
Harry M. Zubkoff is the former publisher of the Pentagon's
Current News, the daily compilations of news stories on
national security affairs that keep top officials in
government apprised of media commentary. He is now a free-
lance writer, specializing in analysis of media performance
in the coverage of defense issues. |
THE "UNCENSORED WAR"
The Media and Vietnam
Daniel C. Hallin
Oxford University Press, 1986
285 pp., $22.50
Seldom does a doctoral dissertation lend itself so aptly to publication in book form. This one is a rare exception to that general rule. It was completed ten years after the Vietnam War ended, and it captures, essentially and vividly, the manner in which the media treated the war and, to a substantial extent, the media's effect - or lack of effect - on public opinion and on the conduct of the war.
Don't misunderstand. This is not a history of the U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia nor is it an analysis of the military conduct of the war in Vietnam, though a good deal of both elements emerge in the text. It is, rather, an analysis of media coverage, and while it reflects exhaustive, detailed, and painstaking research, it has some limitations. As Hallin himself points out, it is impossible for any single study to deal comprehensively with the media coverage of Vietnam. The problem is not simply one of volume; quite understandably the sheer volume of material from the nation's press is so immense as to be virtually unmanageable. More to the point, however, is the great diversity of reporting and opinionizing. Coverage of the war in the so-called liberal, prestige papers like The New York Times and The Washington Post, for example, was significantly different from coverage in the so-called conservative papers like the Chicago Tribune and the San Diego Union. Thus, anyone following events as reported in The New York Times and Newsweek were
... (1995 of 14757 Characters)
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