Tracking media mishaps and bias in reporting the 1968 Tet offensiveReviewed by Jerry Saperstein, 2009-09-07
"Big Story" is the recounting of how the "American press and
television reported and interpreted the crisis of Tet 1968 in
Vietnam and Washington".
I would dearly love to be able to say that author Peter Braestrup
concurs with my long held conclusion that the American media were
all left-wing, sympathetic to Communism and knowingly lied when
they reported that the American and South Vietnamese military
victory over the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces in the 1968
Tet offensive was actually a disaster.
In fact, while Braestrup does meticulously report what many might
consider the misdeeds of the press in their reporting on Vietnam,
he concludes that it was a mixture of factors that led to media's
ultimate reportorial failure. He is, of course, right. General
William Westmoreland was not a paragon a virtue when it came to
dispensing the facts. The military staff assigned to liase with the
media, Braestrup demonstrates, was essentially inadequate in many,
many ways. Then there was the dynamic duo of Lyndon Baines Johnson
and Robert McNamara who believed they were military and political
geniuses and were neither.
Though published decades ago, Braestrup informs the present day.
American media has become more stridently left-wing and more intent
on misleading and misinforming the public while pursuing their own
political and ideological goals.
Baestrup tracks the trajectory of the competitive press corps in
Vietnam, particularly the television people who were coming into
their ascendancy. For the TV people, images mattered, not facts.
They needed material to engage eyeballs, not minds. It was logical
that the images be violent even though they didn't tell the true
story. The news anchors weren't objective readers of facts: they
were advocates of the America as the oppressor theory and they
echoed the shouts of the people clogging the streets with their
protests.
Braestrup concluded his analysis of the media's performance by
calling it "an extreme case", but warned as well - and bear in mind
this was in 1977 - that "unsatisfactory performance [of the media]
in another surprise crisis or near-crisis appears likely". What
Braestrup did not foresee was that the media, led by network
television, would get into the business of manufacturing crises and
that the media's tilt toward the left would become more pronounced.
Peter Braestrup passed away in 1997. It is our loss that we did not
have his insight on the performance of the media in Afghanistan and
Iraq campaigns. It undoubtedly would have been enlightening.
Jerry
Excellent dissection of the press coverage during Tet 68 period of
Vietnam warReviewed by Juan Gamboa, 2008-04-03
I just finished this book in the last couple of days. Excellent all
the way through. Carefully crafted examples of what was right and
WRONG with the media coverage of the Tet 68 Offensive during the
Vietnam war, and the war overall, show the problems with the
reporting: in some glaring cases, the bias. I specifically could
relate to recent conflicts the comments made about the speed of a
story from the start of an event to publication and how that
sometimes led to the wrong analysis and conclusion.
The perceptions set forth by the media, either deliberately or by
editing mistakes, to the population were in cases wrong and led
people in a path to make decisions based on faulty information. For
a long time I wondered if my opinions and own analysis of the
Vietnam conflict were ill conceived. This book put those concerns
in their proper place: even though it was a terrible event, maybe
the US could have been done with it sooner and with a better result
for all had the true facts, as the media could gather, come to
light for the general population instead of an inherently flawed
approach with a lot of bias added.
Given that the book was written by a Journalist in the middle of it
all gives great validity to the book: yesterday, today, and
tomorrow.
Eye-opening critique of the press and governmentReviewed by Charles Hugh Smith, 2006-05-16
A thorough critique of the press coverage of the Tet Offensive.
Amazingly, the press almost universally got it wrong. The U.S. and
the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) actually won the battle; the Viet
Cong were decimated and never recovered as a fighting force (The
regular North Vietnamese Army shouldered the major fighting from
then on). It took the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) four years to
build up enough strength for another major offensive (1972), which
led to the Christmas bombings of Hanoi and the "peace
accords."
Written by a journalist, this book is critical but not ideological;
the press is not "the bad guy" here. There is plenty of blame to go
around. The military misrepresented the strength of the Viet Cong,
for its own reasons, and the press went on to misrepresent the
battle for its own reasons. The real heresy of this book is
revealing how the ARVN and U.S. forces aquitted themselves
exceedingly well on the battlefield. Was the war "winnable" on the
ground? It certainly wasn't "winnable" politically, but credit
should be given to the servicepeople on the ground (and in the air)
who did in fact win the battle tactically and strategically.
The original edition was published by Westview Press in 1977; Yale
University Press issued an abidged version in 1983 and 1986;
another edition was published by Presidio Press in 1994.
Enlightenment for a Vietnam GruntReviewed by John L. Reid, 2006-03-26
This book was a real eye-opener for me. As a Vietnam veteran who
served in Vietnam in 1967-68-69-70 and 71, I had always held fast
to the premise that media coverage of Tet 68 sabotaged the possible
successful conclusion of the Vietnam war in our favour. I had
always believed that the american press had deliberately skewed
their war coverage towards the negative side.
Braestrup's well documented study of press coverage of the Tet 68
offensive made me re-think all my knee jerk attitudes towards the
press.
He presents meticulous summaries of coverage by the major american
newspapers and television networks. While some individual papers
and networks might have had an anti-war bias most tried to give
balanced coverage.
When Braestrup gets into the logistical details of the in media
coverage of the war, he really enlightens us. It's easy in
hindsight to assume that todays wall to wall coverage of world news
was the norm in Vietnam. Braestrup shows us in great detail the
limitations in personnel and technology that constrained media
coverage of the Vietnam war
If you read his analysis, compiled from his own in-country
experience with an in depth analysis of most major news outlets
reporting from Vietnam during the war, you as a reader are
enlightened and forced to rethink your own pre-conceived notions
about the subject.
I found this work one of the most illuminating works of modern
history that I have even read.
It's interesting just from Braestrups first hand retelling of his
own part in history as a practicing journaslist. His analysis of
journalistic coverage of the Vietnam War is incredibly stimulating
and educational.
I highly recommend this work to war correspondents, editors and
journalism students interested in getting war coverage just
right.
John Reid
A must readReviewed by C. Brobeck, 2001-12-20
Peter Braestup's book on the reporting of the Tet Offensive is a
critically important book to read for those trying to understand
the effect of reporters' all-too-human bias on what information the
average citizen has available to him or her, as well as for those
looking to find out not only what went wrong in Vietnam, but what
the United States and its allies (including South Vietnam) did
right - an aspect still all too overlooked.
Though it is critical of some particular newspeople, as well as
some politicians and military spokemen of the Vietnam era, the book
is highly constructive in tone. Many of the lessons pointed out by
Braestrup two decades ago have clearly been taken by the media,
judging by the general improvement in war reporting during the
current (as of fall, 2001) events in Afghanistan.
It is also a must read for those who question the abilities of
democratic states to defend what they believe in.Braestrup lays
bare the notions of the time that the allied forces - from ARVN to
the U.S. Marines, were not effective, or that they were a corrupt
force for undesirable ends.
An added bonus is that Braestrup is a gifted writer; his prose is
readable and engaging, and his research is thorough and well
documented. This book deserves to be brought out in a new edition
(though I did buy mine through the Amazon's used book marketplace,
and received excellent service there).
