The last helicopter liftoff from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon on 30 April 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam war. Fifty years later, mythology about US media coverage of the war is locked into the faulty premise that news outlets were pivotal in causing Americans to turn against it. Some say that mainstream media undermined a noble war effort, while others say that coverage alerted the public to realities of an unjust war. Both assertions are wrong.
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.
