TELEVISION, 1946–PRESENT

Television brought unforgettable sounds and sights of war to the American home front. Geographically isolated from major conflicts, U.S. citizens had become accustomed to reading newspaper and hearing radio reports of distant battlefield action, military and civilian casualties, troop movements, government propaganda, and commentaries about war. Television could do all of these things and more, bringing viewers a new and captivating sense of reality, immediacy, and participation through the combination of moving images and sound. Television narrowed the psychological, emotional, and political distance between the home front and the battlefield: what happened in Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, and Iraq also happened inside American living rooms. Television helped support and form American communication about fighting wars and managing enemies.

Before the Vietnam War, film footage and commentaries about World War I, World War II, and the Korean War were frequently aired on television, but typically in the form of carefully edited documentaries. Victory at Sea, for example, was produced in 1952 for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) by Henry Salomon, Jr. Pieced together from Navy footage taken during actual naval battles, the popular series ran for twenty-six weeks. With a stirring soundtrack, the thirty-minute segments were narrated by a strong male voice. In the 1950s and 1960s, Americans also enjoyed watching war movies and television series with military themes such as Combat! The early era of television generally portrayed the excitement, glory, and heroism of war. Television continues to provide Americans with entertaining movies and graphic documentaries about war.

In their pioneering 1951 news program, See it Now, the journalists Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly offered expanded coverage of current events such as the Korean War and the Army-McCarthy hearings. The American Broadcasting Company's (ABC) extensive coverage of the hearings encouraged citizens to suspect the motives behind Senator Joseph McCarthy's pursuit of Communist sympathizers inside the military. Documentaries such as Burton Benjamin's Trial at Nuremberg (1958) and From Kaiser to Fuehrer (1959) conveyed philosophic reasons why Americans must sometimes fight wars. Early television productions about war clearly distinguished between heroes and villains, and the power of the military was dramatically connected to national survival.

Television played a significant role in shaping public opinion during the Cold War (1946–1991), portraying the personalities of leaders and describing ideological differences between democracy and Communism. Television linked ideology to world leaders. After Richard Nixon's official visit to Moscow in 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev toured the United States for two weeks, appearing daily on television. In 1960 Khrushchev was filmed walking out of an international diplomatic meeting in Paris, sensationally rebuffing President Eisenhower and other Western leaders. Television viewers observed Khrushchev take off his shoe and bang it on his desk at the United Nations, denouncing those who serve the "imperialist" interests of the United States. In 1962 President Kennedy used television to reach a tense world audience as he demanded that the Soviet Union remove missiles from Cuba. Both the Soviets and Americans telecast their competitive advances in the space race, beginning with the successful orbit of Sputnik I in 1957. Nearly 600 million people worldwide watched two Americans triumphantly walk on the moon in 1969. In 1982 television carried President Ronald Reagan's description of the Soviet Union as a "decaying evil empire." And in 1989, television viewers saw the Berlin Wall fall. Television rendered events as part of the drama and conflict of the Cold War. Viewers could follow developments in the contest between the two superpowers on their TV screens.

In 1962 the experienced war correspondent Walter Cronkite began anchoring CBS Nightly News. Within a decade, he became one of the most trusted public figures in America, with over nine million nightly viewers. With a professional reputation for presenting news "the way it was" and without bias, Cronkite's coverage of the Vietnam War eventually included his own criticism of the U.S. government. Along with other journalists, he used television to bring Americans directly to the unedited, uncensored frontline. Television began to show American viewers increasingly dark, violent, chaotic, and controversial aspects of war. Not only were soldiers filmed while fighting, they were filmed getting wounded and killed. The evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, accusations of atrocities committed by GIs, pathetic scenes of refugees, mass demonstrations against the war, and the blindly destructive power of modern weapons were all brought home into the living room. In addition to the live news coverage every day, investigative documentaries with a critical orientation also began to appear. Frank Freed, for instance, helped inform an increasingly fragmented public opinion with his probing NBC documentaries: The Decision to Drop the Bomb (1965), Cuba: The Missile Crisis (1964), And Now the War Is Over: The American Military in the '70's (1971), and Vietnam Hindsight (1971). Television journalists openly challenged the truthfulness of official government reports during the Vietnam War, focusing public attention on the problem of an alleged credibility gap.

Television continued to inform Americans about military engagements in Panama, the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Digital communication between reporters and their networks, satellite phone connections, behind-the-lines broadcasting, and other technical innovations added to television's ability to fascinate viewers. The success of cable television companies, twenty-four-hour programming, and a vast increase in the number of national and international broadcasters also increased television's impact on the home front. Americans can now see their wars from a variety of sources and perspectives.

Both soldiers and civilians relied on the Cable News Network (CNN) for information about the first U.S. air strikes against Baghdad in March 2003. Integrated with fighting units, officially "embedded" journalists provided the first real-time images of American forces in action. Feeling safe at home, Americans could watch their pilots actually aim, shoot, and destroy enemy troops with sophisticated weapons. Between battle scenes, moderators interviewed professionals about the technical aspects of the weapons used, their cost, and their destructive potential. According to Nielsen Media Research, nearly seventy percent of Americans relied on cable networks for information about the war in Iraq, with the audiences of MSNBC, CNN, and Fox increasing almost 300 percent during the first two weeks of the war. Many television networks, such as the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and MSNBC, supplemented their coverage by hosting Web sites. Networks varied greatly in what they elected to cover, the depth of commentary presented, and how much they embraced official U.S. views. Fox, for example, routinely displayed the flag, overtly appealed to patriotic emotions, and generally attracted viewers who supported the government's "War on Terrorism." In contrast, Arab and European networks, widely available to American cable subscribers, related civilian casualties, alternative interpretations of events, and international criticism of the war.

Television functions especially well in bringing fresh, impressive graphics and easily accessible information to viewers. Its coverage of war, however, also leads to controversy. One problem is that networks typically deliver spectacular images without helping viewers interpret what they see. For instance, as television stations transmitted the ongoing terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, viewers were left with unexplained horror. Television showed what was happening in New York City, replay after replay. Though the view was perfectly clear, television reporters struggled to comprehend the meaning of the events. Television delivers breaking news in full color, allowing Americans to see war for themselves, but critics have charged major networks with sensationalism, commercialism, repetition, and superficiality.

Another problem with television during wartime is that the medium becomes entangled in the conflict, employed by the warring parties in their struggle to manipulate public opinion. Embedded journalists, for instance, serve the interests of the military, showing viewers what the government wants them to see. Al Jazeera and other Arabic networks deliver videotaped messages on behalf of terrorists. What networks decide to broadcast may indeed be of strategic importance in war.

Television's evolving coverage of war raises questions about the strategic importance of information access, private ownership of networks, freedom of the press, and the constitutionally protected obligation of the press to report news to citizens. Paradoxically, criticism of television's coverage of war is itself extensively televised, with experts using television to debate the use of television. Television's ability to help Americans observe and make sense of war makes it one of the most important and contested technological innovations.

bibliography

Anderegg, Michael, ed. Inventing Vietnam: the War in Film and Television. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.

Bernhard, Nancy E. U.S. Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947–1960. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Braestrap, Peter. Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977.

Denton, Robert E., Jr. The Media and the Persian Gulf War. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993.

Doherty, Thomas Patrick. Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.

Hudson, Miles, and Stranier, John. War and the Media: A Random Searchlight. New York: New York University Press, 1998.

Thompson, Loren, ed. Defense Beat: The Dilemmas of Defense Coverage. New York: Lexington Books, 1991.

Rather, Dan. America at War: The Battle for Iraq—A View from the Frontlines. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003.

Schechter, Danny. Media Wars: News at a Time of Terror. Lanham, MD: Rowmanx and Littlefield. 2003.

Daniel B. Lee

See also:Arts as Weapon; Photojournalism; Popular Culture and Cold War; Tet, Impact of.