policy - The Black Vault

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Times is important primarily as an agenda-setter for the other media, not
as an attitude-shaper. Its attention to the Vietnamese "boat people" for
example helped put that subject on the menu. Its editorial opposition to
the war helped make
other critics respectable, but did not tilt Time or
Newsweek in 1966-67.
One should not ignore the "class" biab of the major media. Print
media tends to be directed at the college-educated upper-middle-class.
TV is aimed at a much wider middle American audience but attempts to be as
journalistic as the major print people. It is unlikely that the major
;aedia (as opposed to AP and UPI,
The
the great feeders of all media) will ever
share the tastes and values of most members of Congress or of most people
in the Pentagor,.
Washington correspondents and columnists enjoy a special advantage in
the coverage of wars and other US foreign entanglements.
there, and they represent no added expense.
They are already
The Washington dateline has a
kind of authority; they are coveriag well known characters--the president,
senators, friends and foes, hawks and doves, cabinet members and other
prominent figures.
Hence, over time, Washington reaction or policy stories
got more TV time and newspaper space on Vietnam than did reporting out of
Vietnam itself. The politics and policy stories, featuring as they did the
presidents and their critics, had more appeal to editors/TV producers than
did seemingly repetitious stories about faraway places. That tendency
thereby magnified the president's behavior, as perceived by the media, and
tended to emphasize Washington/domesti: rhetoric and reaction to trinds and
events rather than the trends and events themselves.
That was portrayed in
extreme form during the 1968 Tet crisis, but it persisted throughout the
war. Presidential performance, the reaction of Congress, and the "atmosphere"
within the administrations tended to have the upperhand as stories
were chosen.
As US troops went ashore in 1965 despite prior press and congressional
complaints over the president's obfuscation of US activities in Indochina,
there was still a general consensus on the neea to "halt aggression" in
Southeast Asia. Even the most critical newsmen in Saigon did not question
V I 3-30
,bow=.