A new piece in The Guardian challenges “mythology about U.S. media coverage” of the Vietnam War, contending that myths are “locked into the faulty premise that news outlets were pivotal in causing Americans to turn against it.” Noting that “some say that mainstream media undermined a noble war effort, while others say that coverage alerted the public to realities of an unjust war,” the article maintains that “both assertions are wrong.”
The article, written by Institute for Public Accuracy executive director Norman Solomon, makes a case that both pro-war and anti-war Americans commonly misunderstand the role of media in war coverage: “Scapegoating the media fits neatly into ‘stab in the back’ theories of Americans who can’t stand the fact that their country lost a war to impoverished Vietnamese fighters. And praising the media as catalysts for the nation’s roused conscience gives undue credit while fostering illusions about mainstream news coverage of America’s wars.”
In reality, as studies show, “the American press was careful to stay away from atrocity stories about the troops,” Solomon writes. “Instead of signifying intrepid journalism, the media saga of the war’s most famous massacre was quite the opposite.”
Jeff Cohen, founder of the media watch group FAIR and a retired journalism professor at Ithaca College, is quoted in the piece about the most well-known atrocity story of the Vietnam War, the My Lai massacre. Within months, “evidence of the massacre was presented to top national news media by Vietnam veteran Ron Ridenhour and others, but not one outlet would touch the story,” Cohen has pointed out. “It wasn’t until November 1969, more than a year and a half after the My Lai slaughter, that the story was finally published by the small, alternative Dispatch News Service and dogged investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.”
Asserting that distorted Vietnam War coverage was not an anomaly, the piece maintains that “when U.S. military action is involved, the reporting routinely amounts to stenographic services for the White House and Pentagon.” Even when U.S. troops are not directly involved, the article adds, “moral entreaties” have not prevented presidents from continuing to enable war horrors: “Joe Biden and Donald Trump have enabled the daily, systematicmass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, made possible by continuous U.S. arms shipments to Israel – making the U.S. a full partner in genocide, as documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.”
Available for interviews:
NORMAN SOLOMON, [email protected]
Solomon is IPA’s executive director and national director of RootsAction. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, includes an afterword about the Gaza war.
JEFF COHEN, [email protected]
Cohen founded Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) and was the founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College. Last month, he toured Vietnam, meeting with various academics and activists.