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The impact of the media on USThe impact of the media on US

public perceptions about thepublic perceptions about theVietnam WarVietnam War

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From a journalists

perspective, the war in

Vietnam was unique. With

virtually unrestrictedaccess to the battle fields

many photographers and

camera operators came

to depict war in a way

never seen before or

since.

AP photographer Huynh Thanh My

covers a Vietnamese battalion pinned

down in a Mekong Delta rice paddyabout a month before he was killed in

combat on 10 October 1965.

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Despite the technology,

this was a guerrilla war

with much of the fighting

at close quarters,

allowing intense

moments to be recorded

on film.

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What impact did the proximity of journalists to the

US Army have on the way the war was reported?

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But it was also a war where images changed public opinion -

images such as this by Nic Ut of nine-year-old Kim Phuc. On 8June 1972 a South Vietnamese aircraft accidentally dropped its

napalm payload on the village of Trang Bang.

With her clothes on fire, Kim Phuc ran out of the village with her

family to be airlifted to hospital

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Perhaps the most

recognised picture from

the war is this by Eddie

Adams. It shows theSouth Vietnamese

General Nguyen Ngoc

Loan executing a Viet

Cong officer with a

single shot to the head.

Does the context of an image change our perception?

The prisoner had just killed at least eight people, which is

what led General Loan to carry out the execution.

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Close up the "glamour" of war is stripped away. A wounded

paratrooper of the 101st Airborne guides a medical

evacuation helicopter through the jungle foliage to pick up

casualties during a five-day patrol of Hue, South Vietnam, in

1968.

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In this picture

by Huynh

Thanh My, a

Viet Congsuspect

undergoes

interrogation

by SouthVietnamese

soldiers in the

Mekong Delta.

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Many US viewers became tired of the images of constant

destruction. The Vietnam War became old news.

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As the war drew to an end, the US public became moredistressed by the images of fighting and the consequences of

war.

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A US soldier poses with

a dead Vietnamese

fighter.

Many Americans began

to question a war that

made U.S. soldiersbehave in this way.

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There seemed to be little good news from Vietnam. This1973 picture shows former Prisoner of War Lieutenant

Colonel Stirm being welcomed home.

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The North Vietnamese carefully controlled mediaaccess to their fighters. As a result, their image as

a heroic peasant army defending their homeland

was successfully portrayed. VC brutality was

rarely reported because the media wasnt there.

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Some of the worlds most

famous photo journalists

worked during the VietnamWar.

Philip Jones Griffiths

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News weeklies like

Life magazine

featured the work of

Larry Burrows. Life

graphically portrayed

the war in Vietnam.

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Food supplies being destroyed at My Lai

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/MyLai_Haeberle_P35_SPC_Capezza.jpg

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The massacre at My Lai

was revealed to the US

public in November 1969.

The event had taken placein March 1968. The world

was horrified by the events

that had taken place there.

In the US, the details of the

massacre made headline

news. It changed many

peoples opinions about theVietnam War. Some people

even doubted what

happened because it was

so appalling.