Walter Cronkite will be known as one of the most famous newscasters of all time but also known for going out of the norm of what a reporter would do. We will never know if his report really changed the president’s opinions but it did change the public’s perception on the war, viewing it as a war we were not winning and not having a good reason for being there. In most of the wars America was involved in we would always appear to be winning and maintaining its image as the strongest nation and people believing we were unbeatable. So in the US we would only show the clips on what we did and it would show us winning the battles and it would make the American people believe that the war was good. But it wasn’t until this war when they saw all the carnage and what happened in the Tet Offensive and all the dead American soldiers did it then start to change people’s perception on the war.
Cronkite was like everyone else watching and seeing what America fed us and he was shocked like the rest of the American public. With Cronkite being one of the most respected news giver, people back then would feel if he says it, it’s the truth and that’s how it is. So I feel like it was more of a culture shock when the one of the leading news reporters changes his stance a huge 180. When he gave his report he showed us what was really happening and that we shouldn’t have been fighting this war because we were losing with no way to win.
Since he showed us what was happening and that his stance had changed, it did drastically change American’s opinions because if he changed his opinions we all knew something was wrong and we should listen up and protest. One famous line he said was, “Who won and who lost in the great Tet Offensive against the cities? I’m not sure. The Viet Cong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we.”
He went on to say, “It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in stalemate.” These comments were the comments that would make anyone who first believed that the war was the best idea were now asking why we were there in the first place. America was all about showing how powerful we were and that we were unstoppable and no country could be beat us never losing a war in 200 years. We never really lost a war and we thought we were going to come in and win, but it turned out to be a bad idea like the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan. We were all about shutting down Communism and that’s something that led to hating the Russians in the 80s. Maybe if we just monitored it before going in there and started fighting we could have determined who the good guys were or who the bad guys were.
It reminds me of what is going on in Israel in the war with the Palestinians. Not for the bad idea in getting into a war in the first place but the idea of fighting someone and you can’t tell who are the bad guys or the civilians because the terrorists hide behind the civilians. In Vietnam they would hide or be hidden and be helped so you were never sure of who to shoot or what not.
The New York Times even wrote this: “Cronkite’s reporting changed the balance; it was the first time in American history a war has been declared over by an anchorman.” It also led to the famous comments of President Johnson saying “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the war.” It led to other reports like this from, Seymour Harsh, and papers like the New York Times and Washington Post making the Pentagon Papers, that showed American military action often being guided not by humanitarian concern but by political benefit, which in the end embarrassed the government.
You can go either way on Cronkite being legitimate or overstepping his bounds. It can be legitimate because his status of being a leading news reporter and people would turn to him being the guy they want to get their news from and believe in. He also can be a hero because he didn’t stick to the script on just reporting or just reporting what the station wants him to say. He went against the norm and can be looked at as a visionary because he didn’t care what would have happened. He was trying to get out the correct information about the war and not the propaganda that the stations would show to make America look good.
As a journalism student, it teaches us when you believe in something deeply that you should fight to report on it even if it’s not professional because in this case it really mattered. When you see someone change their opinion like that it shows that he did his due diligence to do some reporting to see what the other side of the argument was. But he did overstep his bounds because he didn’t do the job the right way. He didn’t set a good precedent for other reporters because lots of us want to speak our opinions but we don’t because we have to be objective and we don’t have the stature Cronkite has.
If any reporter did this he would get fired. With Cronkite over stepping the bounds is just something that is unfair but something that had to be done in the end to change America and the government’s views on what was really going on there in Viet Nam. He was a very lucky man not to get fired. I think because of him a higher percentage of people switched sides from the pro to the con side of this war. I think if anyone since Cronkite or in the future would want to do a report like this, they wouldn’t want to do it because they don’t want to be fired or get any negative criticism because in the year 2013 you can be criticized in all forms now with all the many types of social media.
You do have all those websites and blogs and video blogs where everyone gives their opinion on every little thing so there has to be some sort of that around that will protest some war. But I don’t think any respected media member will ever do this because they are Walter Cronkite or the fact that back then you had only a few news networks showing the news. You only would only get news from the 2 or 3 and that was it so you always believed the words from Cronkite so even the president and officials would have trust in Cronkite.
On the other hand, I feel like in 2013 the way we have evolved as a nation and that we can have strong opinions on anything because we are at the point where we accept everyone and fight for most people’s freedoms such as freedom of speech which plays into it very much. Maybe John Stewart or other people who have political shows but aren’t always serious could do a report like this and get away with it but I don’t think people like Glenn Beck or Wolf Blitzer or even Larry King could get away with this because they work for either a network or company that wouldn’t want to be a part of something so controversial and would draw lots of bad or good publicity.
It would depend on what your view on the topic would be. People are only worried about themselves now that they want to still have a job and be paid and don’t really care about other people in other countries or continents. Howard Stern is the only broadcaster I know that doesn’t care what others or networks think about his opinions. He would do something to state his opinion on a war that he thinks is unjust and wouldn’t care if he would get fired because he’s been fired before and always seems to be reappearing or popping up somewhere else on TV or radio.
In the end Cronkite’s report on Vietnam was needed and was one of the most important events in TV history and history itself because it most certainly did change the outcome of how much longer we kept fighting a non winning war. It changed the whole perception that people had made regarding America’s invincibility that we could beat anyone and put in democratic ways no matter what or where.