policy - The Black Vault

THE BDM CORPORATION
corporato qtructural changes that concentrated control of the expanding and
highly profitable news-gathering resources of the nation. This chapter
examines briefly the changes in the pcst-World War II media to establish a
context for evaluating the impact of reporting on the Vietnam war.
B. CHANGING MEDIA IN A CHANGING SOCIETY
society.
The US
following:
media have changed withirn the context of a changing American
The overall changes which took place in the media included the
communications technology, corporate concentration, the media
as a business, and news presentation. The evolution of the media in
America is examined as it establishes a context for assessing the changes
in news media reporting and specifically in US media reporting of the
Vietnam war.
1. Technelogical Changes
A technological revolut 4 on has swept the news gathering and news
presentation industry since World War II. During World War II, news presentation
was dominated completely by the newspapers and radio and was
supplemented by the newsreel films shown at movie theaters.
This comfortable
dominance was upset by the birtn of the television industry in 1946.
Within a decade,
television was serving an estimated 100 million persons;
subsequently, it has become available to virtually every American. Nineteen
sixty one was a key date for television news because in that year
public opinion polls indicated that, for the first time, - majority of
Americans received their news information about world events primarily from
television. 3/ Television dramatically increased access to news. Instead
of reLJing news that had been passed from report,.rs to newspaper editors,
the public was able to view news events as they were taking place.
Through
the use of television signal transmitting satellites, it became possible to
transmit rapidly and vividly images of these evenbs around the world. 4/
"Thus, the communications technology allowed Americans to see sni.Ill segments
of the Vietnam war and to recaive the simultaneous analysis offered by news
•Rk I reporters. It should be noted that during most of the Vietnam war, what
3-3
% Mi.