It is important to place the news media of the middle and late 1960s in the appropriate context. The average cable subscriber in 1999 has access to a multitude of news sources such as CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News

Coming from "the most trusted man in America", many Americans took these comments to mean that Vietnam was a lost cause and the best thing for the United States to do was get out before suffering further casualties. President Lyndon Johnson privately said, "If I have lost Walter Cronkite, I have lost Mr. Average American Citizen" (http://abcnews.go.com/century/tvseries/tvseries_tet8.html). The Tet Offensive was seen as catalyst that deeply divided public opinion about the war. Before Tet, television journalists tended to describe the war as "our side" versus "their side" (the "good war") whereas after Tet "our war" became "the war" (Hammond 159). Coverage of the Tet Offensive coupled with Cronkite’s prediction of a continued stalemate helped to influence American public opinion against the Vietnam War.

NBC’s David Brinkley also added his own commentary about the war in June of 1969 while introducing casualty figures. Brinkley said, "Today in Saigon they announced the casualty figures for the week. And though they came in the form of numbers, each one of them was a man, most of them quite young, each with hopes he will never realize, each with families and friends who will never see him alive again" (Hammond 159). This was one of Brinkley’s strongest comments about the war. The comments came about a year and a half after Tet and the public’s sentiment about the war was even more divided. Many people would have had their own opinions about war without anchors such as Brinkley and Cronkite, but many who did not already have an opinion may have been influenced by their comments and opposed the war.

To say that we are closer to a victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we

Safer added the following commentary at the end of the piece: "There is little doubt that American fire power can win a military victory here. But to a Vietnamese peasant whose home means a lifetime of backbreaking labor, it will take more than presidential promises to convince him that we are on his side" (Hammond 59). The footage and Safer’s commentary cast doubt on the military’s actions in Vietnam and over time, news stories like this began to influence the public’s opinion about the Vietnam War.

are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say

In early 1968, the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive, a major incursion into South Vietnam. During the offensive, North Vietnamese troops were able to briefly occupy the U.S. embassy in Saigon. The embassy occupation coupled with high casualties and proof that the Viet Cong could indeed fight a war, hurt morale back home in the United States. Two well-known instances from the Tet Offensive that were shown in living rooms all across America had a devastating effect on America’s feelings about the war in Vietnam.

Some topics in this essay:
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