The Uncensored War: The Media and Vietnam

by Daniel C. Hallin

This book was finished in the tenth year after the end of the Vietnam War. The year 1985 was also the year of Rambo, and of a number of other celebration of the Vietnam War in popular culture. It was the year Congress cut off aid to the "Contras" in Nicaragua, and then abruptly reversed itself and approved "humanitarian" aid to support the guerrilla war in that country. The "Vietnam Syndrome" showed signs of giving way tot he "Grenada Syndrome": the fear of repeating the Vietnam experience showed signs of giving way to a desire to relive it in an idealized form. The nation seemed deeply confused about its identity as an actor in world politics, and thus particularly vulnerable to appealing myths. So it is a good time to take a sober look back and the nation's consciousness during the Vietnam War itself--which as we shall see, despite the popular image of an independent media demolishing the nation's illusions, was also governed by a powerful mythology, born in part out of the traumas of earlier wars.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Journalism, Military Fiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Courtney Tabor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic in the political communication canon of literature. The spheres model (consensus, legitimate controversy, and deviance) is such a significant contribution to understanding ideological and elite sway in “objective” journalism and the points hold even decades later. The distance of the book from the Vietnam War at the time of my reading though makes most of it more of a detailed historical text that can be hard to follow if this conflict isn’t fresh on your mind or something you read about frequently. If you’re just trying to get the gist without all the military history, you could probably just read the concluding chapter.

[Roxann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was born out of the dissertation that Hallin submitted at Berkeley. Even though, he has added (I'm guessing) more insight and information to his collegiate study, it still reads very much like a college paper, ie: "Here is the research I have done, and here is how I am interpreting it." That said, I do think a lot of his points are valid, and he makes a good case that News Organizations did not cause the failure of the Vietnam War. And, in fact were mostly supportive of the Powers that Be in the White House.

He begins the book with data about the "Prestige Press," as he refers to them, most specifically the Elite Newspapers, such as the NY Times. I suppose it follows that he did not find TV news prestigious? Fair enough I guess. He provides examples of how detailed and informative the Prestige Press is, while the Television news is more interested in film opportunities. He points out that newspaper reporters would provide varying views from many sources, while TV reporters mostly interviewed soldiers, especially pilots, because theoretically they have more in common with them, more middle class. Initially, Hallin focuses completely on newspapers, indicating the different approaches from the Elite Press and Hometown Newspapers because (1) copies of early 60's newscasts do not exist and (2) they were really not covering the war at that time, because it wasn't that important to average TV viewers. Hallin also makes the case, again maybe obvious, that the readers of the NY Times are more educated than the viewers of the nightly news and are seeking more in-depth information. Early on (about 1965) he switches to mostly comparing TV coverage with little mention of the Prestige Press. Because, he says there are just to many stories on Vietnam in the newspapers past that point. I get it, but it seems like a haphazard approach to any research project. What really is your thesis? Maybe it should have been a specific time period and have been all inclusive. All this being said, I learned some things, I didn't know about Vietnam, so it was worth it. If you are familiar with the History of Vietnam, I'm guessing you won't find much in this book. And, it is a small point, I suppose, but there are many typos, and the editors use the wrong insure "ensure" every time. It drove me crazy after a bit.

[natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

had to read this for journalism class it was pretty interesting

[Craig Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hallin does an excellent job puncturing the myth that the media--newspaper and television--was hostile to the war in Vietnam, and hence, to some degree responsible for its failure. The hostile media theory holds no water up until the Tet offensive in 1968 and is a relatively small piece of a larger complicated picture thereafter. The book is divided into two sections, the first focusing on coverage of the war in the "liberal" New York Times up to 1965, the point at which reasonably complete archives of televised coverage become available. The pattern is clear: the newspaper coverage, grounded in contemporary understandings of "objective journalism," holds very tightly to reporting statements from official spokesmen, focusing on "news"--events that took place within a couple of days--and pays next to no attention to the larger questions that might have emerged from paying attention to history or context. Once television enters as a major player, the issues are a bit different; Hallin accurately describes the relationship between three spheres of discourse: a sphere of consensus, a sphere of legitimate disagreement, and a sphere of divergence. During Vietnam, the idea that the war was being fought for admirable purposes was located in the sphere of consensus. Only as the failure of the war became increasingly obvious--largely as a result of interviews with soldiers in the field--the way the war was being fought became the subject of legitimate controversy. But at no point did anything resembling a radical criticism of the war move out of the sphere of divergence and receive serious attention. The Uncensored War was published in the 1980s and there are points at which it's description of how the media operates is obviously dated. I would also have liked to have seen the attention to print media (and sources other than the Times) expanded. But it remains a very valuable book that helps explode enduring myths of the Sixties.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really found this book quite useful as a reference tool concerning media representations during the Vietnam War. I wish the study had actually gone a little bit further in its chronology, looking at how exactly the news stations chose to depict the fall of Saigon.

[Whitney Borup · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent argument for why the media did not lose the Vietnam War. Now I have to write a real review about it.