How Did The Media Influence The Vietnam War

Thesis: Of the reasons for the withdrawal of the United States from Vietnam, the media coverage was the most important one, especially the coverage of the Tet-Offensive.

Introduction: Talk about each reason one sentence.

2 Paragraph: Intro to the war

Influence by the media:

The media influenced the Anti- War movement tremendously, especially by spreading their protests on television nationwide

First war where television showed images and spreaded the social and political protests in America

People were shocked by the images and started to overthink if that, what they were doing was right

The media was not always interested in the war, ”until many civilians were killed in an attack against the south vietnamese premier Diem” (

f)

Because people are usually not as interested in

generals covered up the story and lied about the massacre of My Lai, because they knew that as soon as the media would find out about the massacre , there would be huge protests and uprisings against the Vietnam War

Officials claimed at first, that Charlie Company achieved its aim and “had killed 128 Vietcong guerillas and that 22 civilians had died in this battle” (The Vietnam, p. 47)

The My Lai massacre happened after the Tet-Offensive, so the military could not risk the publishing of the massacre to the U.S. citizens, because of all the protests that were happening anyways

The story about the massacre must have spread, because more and more people found out about it and got involved in it until, one soldier, named Ron Ridenhour, who heard the story, wrote a letter “to the president Richard Nixon, the Pentagon, State Department and other high ranking government officials” (

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The government as well as the military still tried to hide the scandal from the public and charged many officers discretely for