1
Protest and Propaganda
American Media Reporting on the Anti-War Movement of the Vietnam Era
2 Contents
Introduction 3
The media and Vietnam 3
Sources and methods 8
Overview of chapters 11
Chapter 1: Framing the antiwar movement 12
Chapter 2: Trends in coverage of the antiwar movement 16
Violence and disruption 16
Counterdemonstrations 17 Internal dissent 18 Generational framing 19 Ineffectiveness framing 20 Numbers framing 21 Communist angle 22
Government favorable sources 22
Chapter 3: The search for legitimacy after Tet 24
Police brutality 24
The “Chicago 7” 25
Alternative movements 26
Chapter 4: Covering veteran, Christian, and Quaker antiwar groups within the propaganda
model 28
Coverage of Vietnam Veterans Against the War 28
Coverage of Christian antiwar movements 31
Coverage of Quaker antiwar movements 32
Discussion and conclusion 36
Bibliography 39
3 Introduction
During their years in office, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon frequently clashed with the American media over their coverage of the Vietnam war. The Nixon administration accused
journalists of false reporting on the conflict and blamed them for turning public opinion against the war effort.1 In the wake of the war, historians partly ascribed the American defeat in Indochina to the media’s hostile stance towards the government. The belief that journalists turned public opinion against the war and caused a public sentiment of political distrust fueled studies on the role of the media in the Vietnam War.2 Other historians, however, rebuked this by showing that the American press was more supportive than critical of the government and theorized that reporters went as far as to publish state propaganda during wartime.3 They argued that journalists frequently cooperated with the White House and adhered to military guidelines.4
Government officials in the 1960’s and 1970’s tried to discredit domestic demonstrations against the Vietnam War by encouraging journalists to report negatively about them. The
government was able to influence journalists because of their powerful ties to media companies. The White House shared interests with media owners and had power over them at the same time. They pressured American reporters into publishing content that favored the government, or as historians Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky put it, the government was “regularly assailing, threatening, and “correcting” the media, trying to contain any deviations from the established line.”5 In this thesis, I argue that during the Vietnam War, American print media reported on domestic antiwar movements and demonstrations along the lines of the propaganda model as defined by Herman and Chomsky in their work Manufacturing Consent.
The media and Vietnam
The accessibility of the Vietnam war to Americans back home fueled research on the effects of how the media covered the conflict. Historian Clarence R. Wyatt argued in 1995 that the conflict in
1 Chester Pach, "“Our worst enemy seems to be the press”: TV news, the Nixon administration, and US troop
withdrawal from Vietnam, 1969–1973," Diplomatic History 34.3 (2010): 555-565, 555.
2
Studies that found correlations between media criticism and political malaise are: Michael J. Robinson, "Public affairs television and the growth of political malaise: The case of "The Selling of the Pentagon,” The American
Political Science Review 70 (1976): 409-432; Seymour M. Lipset and William Schneider, The confidence gap: Business, labor, and government in the public mind (New York: Free Press, 1983).
3 Important studies that showed the press actually supported the White House are: Hallin, The uncensored war:
The media and Vietnam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986); Edward S. Herman and Noam
Chomsky, Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988); Clarence R. Wyatt, Paper soldiers: The American press and the Vietnam War (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995).
4
Daniel C. Hallin, The uncensored war: The media and Vietnam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 211; Wyatt, 217.
5
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Vietnam was “the most covered but least understood war in American history.”6 Newspapers showed battlefront pictures and television allowed American citizens to watch footage from the battle overseas and witness what hardships soldiers went through. After the United States left Vietnam, scholars researched media coverage’s significance and the effect it had on the course of the war. Studies found that following television news diminished political trust among Americans, and surveys showed the majority of Americans to be politically disaffected by the end of the war.7
Historians turned to the media coverage of the war to explain the increase in political distrust and political disaffection among the American people. They theorized that newspaper stories and television broadcasts on the war had a negativist emphasis and turned public opinion against the government’s war effort. Studies on media effects found positive correlations between levels of political criticism in newspapers and the amount of news exposure on political distrust.8 Media critics argued that the press always emphasized the negative side of news events. They assumed that news focused on conflict and violence in reporting because this generated the most attention. This influenced journalists to make news stories on the Vietnam War sensational, aggressive and anti-institutional. Some even went as far as to ask whether the events of the Vietnam War were negative in itself, or whether the media just interpreted them negatively.9
Theories about how the media prevented an American victory in Vietnam through their adversarial stance towards the government came across important opposition in the 1980’s. An analysis of New York Times articles and American news broadcasts during the Vietnam War by historian Daniel Hallin showed that American print and film actually helped the government dehumanize a foreign enemy.10 In their book Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky also argued that the press did not criticize the U.S. government during the war, but published forms of state propaganda. According to Herman and Chomsky, there were many examples of the American media publishing propaganda during the conflict in Vietnam: journalists never described American aggression as such, put American soldiers in the spotlight while they downplayed Vietnamese civilian casualties, and failed to recognize slaughters like the massacre in My
6
Wyatt, 129.
7
Michael J. Robinson, "Public affairs television and the growth of political malaise: The case of "The Selling of the Pentagon,” The American Political Science Review 70 (1976): 409-432, 418; Arthur H. Miller, Edie N. Goldenberg, and Lutz Erbring. "Type-set politics: Impact of newspapers on public confidence," American
Political Science Review 73 (1979): 67-84, 80.
8 Arthur H. Miller, Edie N. Goldenberg, and Lutz Erbring. "Type-set politics: Impact of newspapers on public
confidence," American Political Science Review 73 (1979): 67-84, 81.
9
Seymour M. Lipset and William Schneider, The confidence gap: Business, labor, and government in the public
mind (New York: Free Press, 1983), 400.
10
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Lai as war crimes. Reporters did not lose the war, they state, but kept the destruction of Indochina out of the mainstream media.11
Herman and Chomsky offered a new way of understanding journalism’s role in the United States. They argued that journalists framed their writings to match government principles and that their reporting seldom exceeded boundaries set by the authorities. The authors did not examine peace movements, which is my focus here. They devised the propaganda model: a framework to explain how and why American media companies unwittingly published propaganda through
external and internal pressure and ties with powerful institutions. The propaganda model dismantled the theory that the media lost the war because of incompetence and left-wing bias as it “traces routes by which money and power can filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public.”12 Their model does not only account for televised media, but for the printed press as well.
Herman and Chomsky state there are five conditions the media in a democracy must meet to fit the propaganda model. The first criterion envelops the size, ownership and profit orientation of mass media firms. In the United States of the late 20th century, 24 large corporations owned by wealthy families or individuals controlled the media outlet.13 Together, these top-tier media firms published more than half of the newspapers in America and reached the most audiences.14 Their extensive reach enabled these media systems to control the national agenda and decide what topics were worthy of national debate. Media companies needed government licenses to broadcast or print news legally. This obligation opened up ways for the government to control and discipline the media by threatening to revoke their licenses if media policies did not adhere to the interests of the political elite.15 These pressures, constraints and shared interests affected media companies’ news choices, making them vulnerable to publishing propaganda for a corporate or political elite. Economic interests make up the second condition of the propaganda model. Western media’s primary source of income is advertising. For media firms to attract advertisers, they need to conform their stories to the advertisers’ (often conservative) principles. Third, the media produce propaganda by relying on information provided by The White House and powerful businesses. The media’s need for credible sources that are always available makes reporters dependent on press-statements issued by government and corporations. Journalists find themselves promoting stories favorable for their sources or withholding articles damaging them to maintain a strong reporter-source relationship. Being important sources, authorities and companies manipulate the media by forcing stories and
11 Ibid, 193-206. 12
Herman and Chomsky, 2.
13
Ibid, 6-7.
14 Ben Bagdikian, The media monopoly (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983), xvi. 15
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frames on them. One way of doing this is by supplying “experts” of their choosing on certain issues. These experts are often former government officials or conservatives that form a mouthpiece for what the government wants published. Stories, frames, and experts pushed by authorities and corporations are hard to ignore for reporters because of their dependency on these powerful sources. The propaganda model’s fourth criterion is the possibility for media firms to receive flak, which means sharp criticism, from other institutions. News outlets suffer heavily from criticism from powerful institutions and especially government. Negative judgments cause media firms to lose credibility and revenue. Out of fear of being criticized by these organizations, the media often conform to conservative principles in their reporting. The fifth criterion, related to receiving flak, is the fear of being branded communist. The media’s fear of being called “communist” was especially present during the Cold War, when accusations of favoring communism could doom a media outlet. Printing and broadcasting anticommunist stories was considered legitimate practice at the time and government officials used anti-communism as a control mechanism, threatening to stick a
“communist”-sticker on every reporter that would not follow establishment-principles.16
The propaganda model theory briefly touches upon the relationship between the American press and war protesters. The large amount of publicity the antiwar movement received did not lead to its members being able to state their minds directly in news articles as stories in the papers were decided for them, not by them. Violent demonstrations and conflict overshadowed the antiwar movement’s agenda in news stories.17 This fit the propaganda model because the press delegitimized protesters in their publications without letting them adequately defend themselves.
The academic world initially received the propaganda model with hostility and neglect. Herman and Chomsky were no authorities in the field of communication studies, which led their theory to be largely ignored and criticized.18 Calling the propaganda model a conspiracy theory was a common form of criticism.19 Herman and Chomsky realized that their theory about the media serving the interest of the elite through corporate and political structures lent itself for this form of criticism, which is why they addressed it in advance in Manufacturing Consent. Herman also rebutted this criticism in later articles about the propaganda model by stating that the propaganda model is not a conspiracy theory, but based on a “free market-perspective”. Herman calls the criticism conspiracy theory an easy way of devaluing the propaganda model and accuses critics of having the superficial
16
Herman and Chomsky, 3-31.
17 Ibid, 244; Hallin, The uncensored war, 199-200. 18
Andrew Mullen, "Twenty years on: The second-order prediction of the Herman-Chomsky propaganda model," Media, Culture & Society 32.4 (2010): 673-690, 680.
19 Andrew Mullen and Jeffery Klaehn, “The Herman–Chomsky propaganda model: A critical approach to
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assumption that thousands of journalists serving the elite must rest on a conspiracy.20 Second, scholars criticized the propaganda model for presenting media audiences as passive and easily manipulated.21 The authors countered that the propaganda model makes no claims regarding media effects on the public, but only predicts media behavior. Finally, critics attacked the model for not taking journalists’ professionalism and objectivity into account. They backed this criticism with the argument that Herman and Chomsky did not interview journalists about their theory and dismissed reporters’ professional ideology as a false consciousness.22 Herman reacted by stating that
professionalism makes reporters oblivious to the compromises with authority they are continuously making and that interviewing journalists about their internalization of bias through pressure and shared interests was futile because journalists are unaware of this.23 In other words, journalists unconsciously internalized norms and practices that lead them to publishing elements of propaganda in their news stories.
After the initial criticism, the propaganda model gained more advocates in academic circles. In recent years scholars came to the defense of the propaganda model and made a case for its remaining viability and enhanced importance in the modern field of communication studies.24 The existent work on the propaganda model has, in the words of one of its 21st century advocates, “barely scratched the surface of the potential the model affords in enabling empirical research”, because “the range of topics the PM can theoretically be applied to is limited only by the creativity and imagination of the researcher.”25
To add to the debate on the role of the press in the Vietnam war I analyze whether American reporters covered the antiwar movement within the framework of the propaganda model. Using the propaganda model, I aim to demonstrate that journalists were influenced to report negatively on peace activists, due to pressure from the government. The extent to which journalists valued objectivity as a professional norm and the extent to which they succeeded in upholding it while covering the antiwar movement is not debated in this thesis, as I merely seek to show that journalists published forms of propaganda because of internal and external pressure.
20 Edward Herman, "The propaganda model: A retrospective," Journalism Studies 1.1 (2000): 101-112, 104-105. 21
Jeffery Klaehn, "Behind the invisible curtain of scholarly criticism: Revisiting the propaganda model," Journalism Studies 4.3 (2003): 359-369, 363-365.
22 Daniel C. Hallin, We keep America on top of the world: Television journalism and the public sphere (Hove:
Psychology Press, 1994), 11.
23
Herman, 105-107.
24 Klaehn, “The propaganda Model: Theoretical and methodological considerations,” Westminster Papers in
Communication and Culture 6 (2009): 43–58, 54; Andrew Mullen, "Twenty years on: The second-order
prediction of the Herman-Chomsky propaganda model," Media, Culture & Society 32.4 (2010): 673-690, 681.
25 Klaehn, “The propaganda Model: Theoretical and methodological considerations,” Westminster Papers in
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The propaganda model has not yet been used to explain the coverage of the antiwar movement. Herman and Chomsky used it to analyze the coverage of the Vietnam War, but they focused on how American reporters covered bombings, soldiers, and victims, while my research concentrates on the coverage of domestic peace organizations. Earlier research on media coverage of the antiwar movement focused on its effect on public opinion and how it shaped the movements’ tactics and goals.26 Historians examined the protestors’ (in)effectiveness and how this correlated
with the way the media portrayed them.27 Explaining the coverage of the antiwar movement through the propaganda model has not been done. Analyzing publications using the propaganda model as a framework helps to further define the role the media played in the Vietnam War. Whether reporters published state propaganda during the Vietnam War sheds new light on the debate about the role of the press in the Vietnam war. It may also create a better understanding of the media’s role in the United States as a whole and its dependence on or resistance to the American government.
Furthermore, this research makes a case for the viability of the propaganda model as a research tool for empirical historical research. In other words, I aim to show that the propaganda model can serve as a framework to analyze the news coverage of the Vietnam War by applying it to the coverage of domestic peace demonstrations.
Sources and methods
The propaganda model serves as the primary interpretative device of my research on the news coverage of the antiwar movement for several reasons. Its analytical strength lies in its explanation of media performance as a result of shared interests with and pressure from powerful institutions like the government. It does not present the publication of propaganda as a conspiracy or look at direct interventions from the government or corporations in news routines. Rather, it
analyzes the process of publishing propaganda from a “free-market”-perspective. Propaganda in America is not a result of pacts between journalists and government officials trying to deceive their constituency, the model states, it is a consequence of a system reporters internalized without awareness. The model shows how the continuing commercialization of news increases the positions of power of the political and corporate elite, leading to an increase in published propaganda. The distinction between direct intervention in news routines and subtle agenda-pushing is crucial in light of my research. Because I analyze articles from American newspapers and look for recurring trends in
26
Charles Chatfield, “At the hands of historians: The antiwar movement of the Vietnam era,” Peace & Change 29 (2004): 483-526, 491. In this historiography of the antiwar movement, Chatfield writes that Todd Gitlin and Daniel Hallin published important work on the media and public opinion: Todd Gitlin, The whole world is
watching: Mass media in the making & unmaking of the new left (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1980); Hallin, The uncensored war. Gitlin focused on how media framing effected and shaped the student antiwar movement.
27
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news writing about the antiwar movement, the propaganda model helps me explain how shared interests and external pressure led to these journalistic habits. Second, the propaganda model treats media firms’ fear of receiving criticism as a factor that influences propaganda publishing. The model accounts for fear of being branded communist in particular. Accounting for anti-communism as a major factor leading to the publication of propaganda is essential in my research because I analyze news articles ranging from 1965 to 1972, during the Cold War. Third, the propaganda model examines structures that influence media performance without accounting for the effect it has on followers of news. The model does not make any predictions about the way propaganda affects the general population. Since the aim of this study is to show how media structures led journalists to publish propaganda on the antiwar movement during the Vietnam conflict, the effects on the American public do not need to be predicted or explained in detail.
In this research, I mainly analyze articles from the New York Times because of its leading role in the American media landscape during the Vietnam War. My study consists of in-depth analyses of New York Times-articles and some Chicago Tribune-stories. The notion of “pack journalism” helps explain why the New York Times was so influential in American print media during the 1960’s and 1970’s.28 This term, coined by Rolling Stone-reporter Timothy Crouse, refers to an American
journalistic practice prevalent in the Vietnam-era. Reporters from different news outlets covered the same events, grouping up and working together on their stories. They continuously exchanged information and copied each other’s writings, which led to homogenous news content.29 The New York Times had a leading role in the reporting of main news events. Reporters from other
newspapers followed Times-journalists in deciding what was newsworthy, what content they would publish and in what tone. This gave the New York Times the power to set the national agenda. Or, as Crouse put it: “Once a story hits page one of the Times, it is certified news and can’t be ignored.”30 Decades later, academics criticized pack journalism, stating that following each other’s content led to a loss of journalistic independence and caused journalistic laziness.31 It is beyond the scope of this study to analyze stories from every American newspaper during the Vietnam War. The practices of pack journalism justify the choice to analyze publications from the New York Times. The leading position of the New York Times warrants analyses of its articles, as they are most representative of the writings of the American print media during the Vietnam War.
28
Timothy Crouse, The boys on the bus (New York: Random House, 1972), 105. The New York Times was considered the most influential American newspaper during the years of the Vietnam War, followed by the
Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.
29
Crouse, 7-8.
30
Ibid, 73.
31 Jonathan Matusitz and Gerald-Mark Breen, “Unethical consequences of pack journalism,” Global Media
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This study also features articles from the Chicago Tribune because the antiwar movement held one of its largest and most memorable protests in Chicago. Protests during the Democratic National Convention in August 1968 attracted around 10.000 activists. They protested for eight days and clashed with the National Guard, causing over 800 wounded. These riots in Chicago received a lot of media attention, as did the trial of the “Chicago 7”: seven protesters charged with inciting the riots. These events justify the analysis of articles published in the Chicago Tribune at the time.
I used keywords to search for relevant articles dating from January 1965 until December 1973, from the year Johnson sent American combat units to Vietnam up until the year Nixon pulled out most of the American troops. The war escalated during these years, as did domestic protest. I scanned the New York Times and Chicago Tribune databases for publications regarding antiwar activists using combinations of the following keywords: “Vietnam”, “demonstration”, “protest”, “rally”, “vigil”, “antiwar”, “activist” and ”rally”. To find articles containing judgments of antiwar groups I used keywords such as ”violent”, ”nonviolent”, ”arrest”, ”communist”, ”peaceful” and ”silent”. To find articles about different antiwar movements I used the terms ”SDS”, ”student”, ”veteran”, ”Christian”, ”clergy” and ”Quaker”. These keywords provided around 2300 publications. The initial search showed that reports about protests were almost twice as likely to contain the word ”violence” than ”silent” or ”peaceful”.32
In selecting key articles about the antiwar movement to analyze, I looked for articles about major demonstrations, background stories and lengthy publications. Major protests included rallies in front of the White House and large demonstrations in Chicago, as well as their legal aftermath. These protests generated a lot of media attention and news stories. Besides articles about major antiwar rallies, I selected background stories on antiwar groups. These articles deal with movements’ internal workings and activists’ convictions. I used these because they often include opinionated sections on the effectiveness, intent, and sincerity of the antiwar movement. I also selected articles based on their length, as lengthy articles tended to be more analytical on activists than short reports, which often only mentioned the location of a protest and the number of arrests. Short write-ups of antiwar rallies contained little information and a neutral tone, whereas longer articles on the antiwar movement featured opinions on activists and often had a positive or negative tone.
In selecting articles from the New York Times and Chicago Tribune, I looked for elements of propaganda by discerning what I call “trends” in news writing. These trends are journalistic practices that reporters show in their news writing. The different trends I discerned are a focus on violence and disruption, attention to counterdemonstrations, focus on dissent within the movement, generational framing, ineffectiveness framing, numbers framing, implying communist influence
32 Using the keywords “Vietnam” and “protest” in conjunction with “violence” in the New York Times database
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within the movement and finally reliance on government favorable sources. I based these trends on framing devices discerned by Gitlin in his study of the media and the SDS.33
These trends relate to the five criteria of the propaganda model. A focus on violence suits the first and second criteria, as sensational headlines and dramatic stories generated more readers and revenue. A reliance on government favorable sources makes up the third criterion of the propaganda model. Writing about counterdemonstrations and dissent among activists, and applying generational, ineffectiveness and numbers frames relate to the fourth criterion: the fear of receiving flak. With these elements in their news stories journalists prevented criticism of being (overly) sympathetic with the antiwar movement. Finally, I account for the fifth criterion of the propaganda model by analyzing the focus on communists within the antiwar movement.
Overview of chapters
In the chapters that follow I further discuss the propaganda model and antiwar movement and analyze news stories about different antiwar groups. The first chapter further discusses the propaganda model and the antiwar movement. It starts with an explanation of the journalistic practice of “framing”, which is an important tool to publish propaganda. It also contains a historiography of the role of the media in the Vietnam War and the place the propaganda model takes in this debate. The workings of the model and its relevance to the Vietnam War and the antiwar movement are discussed. The second chapter contains an analysis of newspaper articles from the New York Times and Chicago Tribune about student peace movements and their antiwar demonstrations. By showing recurring trends in news writing, this chapter serves to provide evidence of the presence of elements of propaganda in the media coverage of student activists. The trends I discuss are a focus on violence and disruption, attention to counterdemonstrations, focus on dissent within the movement, generational framing, ineffectiveness framing, numbers framing, implying communist influence within the movement and finally reliance on government favorable sources. These aspects of reporting fit the propaganda model because they help the political elite discredit the antiwar movement and because they preserve the status quo of the Vietnam War. The third chapter contains an analysis of articles published after the Tet-offensive in 1968. More reporters turned against the war personally, but an analysis of publications about the Chicago riots shows that journalists kept writing as the propaganda model predicts. The fourth and final chapter discusses articles from the New York Times about veteran, Christian, and Quaker antiwar movements and protests. It aims to show how journalists treated these peace groups more positively than student groups while staying within the boundaries of the propaganda model.
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12 Chapter 1: Framing the antiwar movement
Journalists published propaganda by selecting frames through which to describe the antiwar movement. Framing is a standard journalistic practice and a vital tool for publishing propaganda. It is an essential part of the agenda-setting theory as described by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in 1972. This theory states that by selecting certain news events to report on the media decide what subjects citizens consider important.34 This “agenda-setting” function gives the press much of its
power.35 Framing, then, is the process of “selecting some aspects of a perceived reality and constructing messages that highlight connections among them in ways that promote a particular interpretation.”36 Journalists not only choose what topics are important, they also use frames to influence the way in which citizens think about those topics. In other words: framing is the media process of highlighting certain aspects of a news event, changing how people perceive the news event itself and the actors in it. For example, journalists can write about antiwar rallies in a
”violence”-frame. By stressing the violent aspects of a demonstration reporters frame protesters as aggressors disrupting everyday life. This process of framing leads news readers to associate the antiwar movement with violence rather than their political message. Framing could influence protestors’ public image and help the government discredit the antiwar movement through propaganda.
Earlier research on media framing of antiwar demonstrations often focused on the largest student antiwar group: the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Scholars were concerned with the way media framing influenced the movement’s development and successes.37 Although the term is not always used, findings of media framing often fit the propaganda model. The media trivialized and polarized the movement using framing devices. They focused on internal dissent, underscored protesters’ numbers and emphasized violence caused by antiwar groups. Reporters relied on official statements from the White House and authorities rather than reactions from dissenters, and would often put the spotlight on the presence of communists within the antiwar movement. Finally, reporters marginalized the movement through the demeaning use of quotation marks (e.g., writing about a ”peaceful protest”) and by giving disproportionate amounts of attention to
counterdemonstrations by pro-war organizations.38 SDS-members often experienced a ”shock of
34
Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw, “The agenda-setting function of mass media,” Public opinion
quarterly 36 (1972): 176-187.
35
Clarence R. Wyatt, Paper soldiers: The American press and the Vietnam War (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), 53.
36 Robert M. Entman, Jörg Matthes, and Liz Pellicano, “Nature, sources, and effects of news framing,” in The
handbook of journalism studies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009): 175-190, 176.
37
The most important work on the effects of media framing on the SDS was: Gitlin, The Whole World is
Watching.
38
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non-recognition” when they read what newspapers wrote about them.39 Media studies also found that war protests, as well as labor protests, were treated more critically in headlines than social protest.40
As rallies against the Vietnam War became more frequent, demonstrations needed to be more radical to receive media attention. The newsworthiness of the antiwar movement quickly fell off, unless there were violence, conflict and arrests to show the public.41 The resulting
”conflict”-frame was standard in media coverage of the antiwar movement. For example, whenever activists held an antiwar demonstration, journalists gave their story a conflict-angle by emphasizing
counterdemonstrations taking place on the other side of the block, trying to equate their numbers to the protests of antiwar activists.42 Other frames the media used to trivialize the antiwar movement or create aversion towards them were “ineffectiveness”- and “generational”-frames. By downplaying the political change activists brought about in war policy, the media pointed out their ineffectiveness. They used a generational frame to depict protesters as naïve students that ought to be accompanied by adults or as drug-taking youngsters who had nothing better to do.43
Journalists also used framing while covering Vietnam veterans opposing the war. In his book The Spitting Image, Jerry Lembcke shows how the White House hoped to split Vietnam veterans from the antiwar movement because they gave the movement enormous credibility. Lembcke illustrates how the government painted a picture of “good”, patriotic veterans versus “bad”, protesting
veterans. Journalists aided the White House by questioning the credibility of protesting veterans and even questioning whether they were veterans at all.44 Vice president Spiro Agnew criticized the press for being overly sympathetic to the antiwar movement and protesting veterans, which shows how the American government used flak as an instrument to control the press. The media portrayal of veterans shifted from positive to negative between 1969 and 1972, which means Nixon’s strategy of criticizing the press worked.45 As the war dragged on, journalists focused on veterans’ mental health issues instead of their antiwar convictions. The media wrote about demonstrating as a form of therapy for traumatized veterans, no longer calling the veterans “bad” for protesting, but framing
39 Gitlin, 17. 40
Michael P. Boyle et al., "Newspapers and protest: An examination of protest coverage from 1960 to 1999," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 82 (2005): 638-653, 648.
41 Edward J. Epstein, News from nowhere: Television and the news (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1973), 195. Epstein
shows that in order to attract and hold the audience, network news must emphasize dramatic events which depict exciting visual action.
42 Gitlin, 47-48. 43
Ibid, 27-28.
44
Jerry Lembcke, The spitting image: Myth, memory, and the legacy of Vietnam (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 63.
45
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them as “mad”.46 The frames applied to news stories about this antiwar group illustrate how journalists aided the government in neutralizing the threat of protesting veterans.
After the Tet-offensive, when reporters in Vietnam witnessed the battle firsthand for the first time, opinions and practices in the newsroom started to change. Several journalists turned against the White House war policy after the Tet-offensive in 1968: many began to question the validity of the war and mostly America’s ability to win it.47 Reporters shifted the spotlight to moderate antiwar
movements. They presented these more moderate groups as an alternative to the radicalized movements they had helped create.48 Besides this “moderation”-frame the media started to give more attention to police brutality against antiwar activists. Antiwar groups loudly cheered this development, but the highlighted opposition between the police and activists only increased polarization among the American public.49 Although a large shift in reporting on the antiwar movement could be expected after Tet, the press kept covering activists following the propaganda model.50 The actions of the media in these years exceeded “the expected level of obedience to the state authorities and reaching the level that one finds in totalitarian states”, Herman and Chomsky believe.51
The framing of news stories about the antiwar movement adheres to the criteria of the propaganda model. The first criterion of profit orientation is visible in the media’s tendency to publish dramatic stories about protests. Their focus on violence and melodrama stems from the need to make stories attractive to news readers and make them buy newspapers. The ownership of media firms also affected news choices in covering the antiwar movement. When reporters started to turn against the war after Tet, for example, media managers began to ask questions about their writers’ publications to keep the content acceptable for the political and corporate elite. They did not intervene directly, but influenced media routines such as story selection.52 By portraying
demonstrations as a disruption of public order or a nuisance, the media could adhere to the interests of the state: delegitimizing the antiwar effort. Journalists depicted ideologically liberal
demonstrations as bothersome more often than conservative ones, as the latter were in line with the ideological principles of the elite.53 The need for revenue from advertising sorts with the first aspect of the propaganda model. Journalists’ focus on the violent nature of antiwar demonstrations
46
Lembcke, 102-105.
47
Herbert Y. Schandler, The unmaking of a president: Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 194-202.
48
Gitlin, 205-232.
49
Ibid, 196.
50 Herman and Chomsky, 230-236. 51
Ibid, 236.
52
Edward J. Epstein, News from nowhere: Television and the news (New York: Random House, 1973): 181-185.
53 Damon T. Di Cicco, "The public nuisance paradigm: Changes in mass media coverage of political protest since
15
illustrate this: “It took tear gas and bloodied heads to make headlines in 1968.”54 Reporters chose to write about the violent aspect of demonstrations to keep news interesting for its reader base, which they needed to close or maintain deals with advertisers. Indirectly, the necessity of revenue from advertisements led to the radicalization of some antiwar activists, who saw violence as the best way to generate publicity.55 The third criterion of the propaganda model, the press’s tendency to turn to government officials for information, is also manifest in coverage on the antiwar movement. Because of their dependency on the government, Wyatt argues that “the press was more a paper soldier than an antiwar, antigovernment crusader.”56 The media relied heavily on information provided by
government officials and the police while covering demonstrations. Reporters seldom asked activists for their opinion, as “the antiwar movement stood at the bottom of the media’s hierarchy of
legitimate political actors.”57 Journalists’ dependency on sources in government presented
opportunities for the White House to manipulate the media. Even more so than Johnson, Nixon and his administration continuously clashed with American journalists as they tried to get them to publish the stories they needed.58 Reporters’ reliance on government officials as their go-to sources led them to publish stories in which they put the antiwar movement in a negative light. The reporting on antiwar demonstrations also contained the propaganda model’s fourth criterion, the use of flak and criticism as a means of disciplining the media. Journalists were cautious when covering antiwar groups, trying not to be too sympathetic with its members out of fear of being branded “left-wing”. Reporters, editors and managers wished to avoid being discredited by the government or accused of bias and an unpatriotic ideology.59 Presenting moderate antiwar groups as a legitimate alternative after the Tet-offensive was a tactic to avoid this criticism. Reporters that turned against the war were unable to support the antiwar movement outright, so they tried to find ways to back them without offending the established conservative elite. Finally, being accused of sympathizing with communists was the worst form of criticism for media organizations, as the government presented the Vietnam conflict as a battle between communism and the free world. The fear of being called communist is recognizable in the reporting on antiwar groups. Editors often ran stories about the presence of communists within the antiwar movement, speculating which of its members had communistic ties and where communists had infiltrated antiwar leadership.60 In the next chapters, I test whether the content and tone of contemporary articles on the antiwar movement can indeed be explained by the propaganda model. 54 Gitlin, 182. 55 Ibid, 182. 56 Wyatt, 218. 57
Hallin, The uncensored war, 198.
58
David Halberstam, The powers that be (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1979), 589-600.
59 Gitlin, 70-77. 60
16 Chapter 2: Trends in coverage of the antiwar movement
To shine a new light on the role of the press in the Vietnam conflict, I will interrogate the coverage of national demonstrations against the war to find trends and use of frames in reporting that fit the propaganda model. The following analysis shows trends in news stories from the New York Times and Chicago Tribune. These trends are based on framing devices discerned by Gitlin in his study of the media and the SDS.61 My analysis demonstrates how the propaganda model should
serve as the framework to interpret the coverage of the antiwar movement.
Violence and disruption
The analysis showed that when covering the antiwar movement, journalists tended to focus on its violent aspects. Journalists frequently chose the violent nature of a demonstration as a news handle because violence and arrests certified news events.62 The antiwar movement grew more radical after 1965, making it easier for reporters to write about violence and disruption.63 By choosing these news angles, reporters aided the government in discrediting the antiwar movement and putting them away as rowdy and uncontrollable mobs. A New York Times article published in 1971 exemplifies the focus on violence in reporting. The coverage of a demonstration in Washington D.C starts out descriptive. Students were “impeding traffic and harassing government employees on their way to work, using as weapons trash, tree limbs, stones, bottles, bricks, lumber, nails, tires, rubbish bins and parked cars.” So far the coverage of violence is neutral and justifiable, as it would not be a sign of good reporting to ignore the violent aspect of an antiwar rally. However, the journalist loses this neutral tone when he continues by portraying the activists as villains working against a “heroic” government and its citizens: “The protesters (…) were thwarted in their plan to stop government operations.” The use of the phrase “thwarted in their plan” creates an image of protesters carrying out an evil plan to cross the White House. The use of this “violent villain”-frame continues: “At the height of the disturbances, tear gas fumes filled the air over some of the city’s most famous monuments, streets and grassy flowered parks.”64 By describing how protesters caused fumes to cover the “grassy flowered parks” of Washington D.C., the reporter creates an image of protesters disturbing a peaceful, innocent place. The Chicago Tribune published a story about the same demonstration in the Capital. This article also focuses on violence incited by demonstrators.
61 Gitlin, 27-28. 62 Ibid, 42. 63 Ibid, 182.
64 Richard Halloran, “7000 Arrested in Capital War Protest; 150 Are Hurt as Clashes Disrupt Traffic,” New York
17
Throughout the story, the reporter refers to the activists as “antiwar radicals” and stresses their failure to paralyze government through violent action.65
Demonstrators were often solely blamed for violent outbreaks. After clashes between protesters and police at the National Democratic Convention in 1968, a Chicago Tribune editorial read: “the bearded, dirty, lawless rabble (…) used every sort of provocation against police and National Guardsmen – vile taunts, lye solutions, bricks and rubble.”66 Terms like “dirty”, “lawless”
and “vile” show the journalist’s tendency to write about activists in a negative tone. The activists were to blame for things getting out of hand, the reporter implies, because they “used every sort of provocation against police”. The reporter portrays activists as unwashed and unruly hippies who left the police no choice but to step in and remove them from the streets.
Besides its violent aspects, reporters often focused on the disruptive nature of an antiwar rally. Journalists described how protests frustrated daily life. They frequently wrote about protesters immobilizing traffic, as well as other disturbances: the suspension of university classes because of protests, interruption of government meetings, or occupation of public spaces like malls and parks. In 1972 a New York Times reporter wrote how the Columbia University had to suspend all of its classes because of a Vietnam protest. He also stresses the disruptive nature of the demonstration by
describing how activists held up local traffic all morning. The article ends with protesters threatening the leader of the university senate and the claim that most Columbia students tried to ignore their protesting classmates.67 The reporter creates an image of disruptive dissenters that frustrated daily life at Columbia University. He shows the protest inconvenienced University workers, fellow students, and local traffic, while he devotes no article space to the activists’ motives and thoughts. The finding that journalists focus on how protests disturb public order supports earlier research on media framing of protests which concluded that reporters increasingly covered demonstrations in a “public nuisance”-frame since the 1960’s.68
Counterdemonstrations
Journalists marginalized the antiwar movement by giving disproportionate and positive attention to war supporters. This journalistic practice fits the propaganda model because promoting pro-war sentiment helped the government legitimize their war effort in Vietnam. One way journalists did this was by playing up counterdemonstrations. Whenever pro-war Americans showed up at an
65
Louis Dombrowski, “D.C. Protest; Seize 7000; Demonstrators Fail to Stall Government,” Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1971.
66
Editorial, “Chicago: A Great City.” Chicago Tribune, August 30, 1968.
67
Martin Arnold, “Protest at Columbia Brings Suspension Of Classes Today,” New York Times, April 21, 1972.
68 Damon T. Di Cicco, "The public nuisance paradigm: Changes in mass media coverage of political protest since
18
antiwar demonstration, they received disproportionately large amounts of media attention. Also, the way journalists described and quoted them differed from how they treated Americans opposing the war.69 A New York Times story from 1965 is primarily devoted to the Steelworkers Union, which backed the Johnson Administration’s war effort. The reporter quotes its members criticizing the ideology and methods of antiwar groups, but does not mention peace activists’ opinions. The different treatment of pro- and antiwar activists is seen when members of the Steelworkers Union state they believe they “represent the overwhelming majority of Americans.” The reporter accepts this statement as fact and never questions it.70 This illustrates how journalists gave credibility to pro-war Americans while ignoring the views of antipro-war activists.
Newspapers also favored pro-war demonstrators by publishing information about their rallies. The New York Times provided the date, time and location of an upcoming pro-war rally: “The parade, scheduled for noon, Oct. 30, will start at 96th Street and end at 62d.”71 A search for articles providing the date and location for an antiwar rally yielded no results.
Even when there were no counterdemonstrations or pro-war activists present, journalists suggested a pro-war sentiment among Americans in their publications. In 1968, a New York Times reporter wrote that “opponents of the peace movement are present everywhere, but they tend to be less vocal.”72 Not only does the reporter imply that a lot of American citizens dislike the peace movement, he tells people supporting the war to speak up more, or suggests that antiwar activists are too loud for other sentiments to surface. The author of the before mentioned article about protests at Columbia University does a similar thing by writing how most Columbia students ignored a small group of demonstrating students.73 By opposing the group of protesters to all the other students, the reporter implies there is a pro-war sentiment among the majority of students, even though he never actually asks about their views.
Internal dissent
When writing about antiwar activists, journalists focused on internal dissent within the peace movement to keep publications acceptable for the elite. Protesters generated most media attention when demonstrating, but a search for articles about the antiwar movement also uncovered
publications on its inner workings. These articles focused on internal dissent and discussions on strategies that led to cracks in the movement, causing it to be ineffective. An example of this is a 1969 New York Times publication. A reporter wrote about “Agitated discussions that have been going
69 Gitlin, 27-28. 70
Michael Handler, “Marxists Join Antiwar Drive but Deny Inspiring It,” New York Times, October 23, 1965.
71
Michael Handler, “Marxists Join Antiwar Drive but Deny Inspiring It,” New York Times, October 23, 1965.
72 Edward Fiske, “Antiwar Movement Makes Rapid Gains Among Seminarians,” New York Times, March 3, 1968. 73
19
on among anti-war groups. (…) The issue is whether to try to enlist the mass American public against the war, by moderate techniques, or to go for more militant protest.”74 The use of the term
“agitated” to describe the antiwar group’s discussions about tactics implies disunity among its members. The reporter states that activists cannot agree on how to get the American public behind their cause, and renders them ineffective by stressing their discord.
The press also stressed the lack of sound leadership within the peace movement. “There is no unification within peace organizations”, the same New York Times piece read, because “the leaders who might have been are dead, and no others have taken their place.”75 The reporter portrays the antiwar group as a chaotic, leaderless organization with members that are unable to agree on a tactic.
Journalists used strong and exaggerated terms to describe internal dissent. They wrote about “a deepening cleavage” within antiwar groups or stated that the student organization SDS was “torn by internal dissension.”76 By publishing articles on the organizational aspects of the antiwar
movement and highlighting its failures, reporters rendered the movement unprofessional and ineffective.
Generational framing
To please the government reporters applied a generational frame when writing about antiwar activists. Journalists often displayed protesters as naïve youngsters: “While not engaging in crude red-baiting, journalists paid disproportionate attention to Viet Cong flags, pictures of Che Guevara, revolutionary and foul-mouthed sloganizing, and beatnik- or hippie-looking young
people.”77 Articles mentioned activists’ young age and the narrow-minded worldview associated with it. Applying a generational frame to the activists helped to discredit them, as young Americans had less credibility than their older compatriots. The militants’ age was sometimes subtly mentioned and at other times bluntly stressed. A 1965 New York Times story opened with the line: “More than 15000 students and their elders (…).” 78 The journalist makes readers envision a scene where supervisors are accompanying protesting children, which deteriorates their credibility.
This generational frame went hand in hand with describing protests as a form of leisure for young Americans. In the same article the reporter writes: “Beards and blue jeans mixed with ivy tweeds and occasional clerical collar in the crows. The marchers seemed to be enjoying their holiday
74
Anthony Lewis, “Vietnam Protest: Confrontation or Persuasion?,” New York Times, October 22, 1969.
75
Anthony Lewis, “Vietnam Protest: Confrontation or Persuasion?,” New York Times, October 22, 1969.
76 Joseph Lelyveld, “The Nation: Conflict of Aims Threatens the Peace Movement,” New York Times, April 19,
1970.
77
Melvin Small, Covering Dissent: The Media and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994), 163.
78
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from exams.”79 He discredits protesters when he writes about “enjoying” the demonstration to create the image that students protested as a form of leisure, instead of seriously wanting to stop the war. Another journalist did the same in a New York Times article about protesters in 1970. The story stresses the naïveté and senselessness of demonstrators by quoting protesters outside the courthouse: “”Well we’ll keep picketing unless someone can think of anything else to do. Can anyone think of anything else to do?”, no-one could.”80 This sentence gives the reader a feeling that
demonstrators were youngsters with too much time on their hands. It implies that picketers demonstrated out of boredom instead of conviction.
Applying a generational frame, reporters discredited activists by stressing their naïveté and inexperience. A New York Times journalist stressed the activists’ lack of life-experience while covering a protest in 1970. At an antiwar rally where protesters also asked for tax reform, the reporter at the scene wrote: “Often the audiences were made up predominantly of high school and college youths, few of whom ever had to wrestle with a 1040 form.”81 The reporter takes away any credibility the protesters have by stating that they have yet to pay any taxes themselves. The reporter marginalizes the activists by implying they have no idea of what they are protesting about because of their young age.
Ineffectiveness framing
Reporters highlighted protestors’ inability to halt the war to discredit them. Applying a generational frame to the antiwar movement and stressing internal dissent were ways for reporters to highlight its ineffectiveness. Reporters portrayed the antiwar movement as unimportant by showing how little change activists brought about in war policy. A New York Times story on White House Pickets in 1965 focuses on activists’ ineffectiveness by stating that: “some had only a hazy idea of how they might go about ending the fighting in Vietnam.”82 The reporter portrays protesters as clueless and lacking a clear approach or strategy. A Chicago Tribune reporter writing about the same protest delegitimizes the activists in a similar fashion. He writes how demonstrators had little effect on government, stating they were “undismayed by the fact that President Johnson, whom they said they were attempting to influence, was weekending in Texas.”83 The reporter implies that the picketers’ efforts were futile and senseless because the president was not even present to witness
79 Author unknown, “15,000 White House Pickets Denounce Vietnam War,“ New York Times, April 18, 1965. 80
Anthony Lukas, “Jury For Chicago 7 Ends Its Third Day Without a Verdict,” New York Times, February 17, 1970.
81 Joseph Lelyveld, “The Nation: Conflict of Aims Threatens the Peace Movement,” New York Times, April 19,
1970.
82
Author unknown, “15,000 White House Pickets Denounce Vietnam War,“ New York Times, April 18, 1965.
83 Michael Pakenham, “14000 Picket White House; Protest Against War.” Chicago Tribune 18 Apr. 1965: 2.
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their protest. He states the activists did not care about this, implying they were ineffective and inefficient.
Another way of pointing out protesters’ ineffectiveness was by writing about how their pro-war counterparts did reach their goals. The Chicago Tribune story about the same picket gives a lot of attention to counterdemonstrators at the scene: “While the demonstration was underway a
delegation from the University of Wisconsin presented a petition at the White House expressing support for United States policy in Vietnam.”84 Here, the journalist further stresses the picketers’ ineffectiveness by showing how pro-war activists were welcomed at the White House while the administration ignored an antiwar protest outside its gates at the same time.
Numbers framing
Journalists marginalized the peace movement by mispresenting their numbers in picture and writing. By describing the antiwar movement as small-numbered journalists aided the government in discrediting it. Different articles about the White House picket in April 1965, for example, reported different numbers of activists. The New York Times mentioned 15.000 protesters, while the Chicago Tribune went with 14.000 demonstrators.85 This difference in numbers shows journalists were not accurate in their coverage of this antiwar rally and did not mind being off on the exact number of protesters. The same New York Times article marginalized activists through a photograph in which their numbers seemed equal to those present at a pro-war rally across the street. The antiwar picket was, in fact, many times larger, but the photo’s perspective does not show this.86 This example shows that the printed press chose to include photographs that marginalized the number of antiwar
picketers or promoted the number of pro-war Americans.
Reporters also discredited the movement by contrasting small groups of people protesting the war with a majority supporting it. A 1965 New York Times article is entirely devoted to showing how only a minority of students opposed the war. Instead of focusing on demonstrators’ message, the article mentions how “only 25 of 12000 students” were present to fight for peace. “It is the general belief that a not very large percentage of the marchers actually were students”, the article continues, further depreciating the antiwar sentiment among Columbia students. The reporter delegitimizes peace activists in this article by stressing how they made up a minority of students, while he ignores the activists’ motives and arguments.87
84
Michael Pakenham, “14000 Picket White House; Protest Against War,” Chicago Tribune, April 18, 1965.
85 Author unknown, “15,000 White House Pickets Denounce Vietnam War,“ New York Times, April 18, 1965;
Michael Pakenham, “14000 Picket White House; Protest Against War,” Chicago Tribune, April 18, 1965.
86
Gitlin, 47-48.
87 Author Unknown, “Survey Finds Campus Protests on Vietnam War are ‘Minute’,” New York Times, October
22 Communist angle
Journalists published propaganda by implying a communist presence in the antiwar movement. According to the propaganda model, Western media outlets were frightened of being branded communist. It was the worst kind of criticism they could receive. This explains why
journalists wrote about the presence and influence of communists in the antiwar movement. It was a journalistic practice that helped to discredit the antiwar movement, as communists were the enemy during the Vietnam War. In a 1965 New York Times article, the reporter wrote about the possibility of a communist presence in the antiwar organization, even though there was no evidence for that claim. The reporter suggested communist influence throughout the story without critically questioning that influence, the assumption solely based on thoughts of sources outside the movement. When asked about communist influence in peace demonstrations at the University of Michigan, an employee replied: “I think not. However, hardcore Communists – professional
Communists are always attracted to centers of disorders. They are eager to assist in the disruption of order. I do not believe these movements are Communist-dominated, but I dare say there are a few Communists participating in this.”88 The fact that the New York Times printed this groundless opinion without any further interpretation or scrutiny shows that its editors were eager to publish
information about the communist threat of antiwar groups. This eagerness came at the expense of doing proper research to the actual magnitude of this menace.
Government favorable sources
Journalists made frequent use of government sources in their reporting, which caused them to publish elements of propaganda. The need for a good relationship with recurring sources made reporters vulnerable to printing information that favored these sources. The inclination to use government sources is manifest in coverage of the peace movement. After an antiwar rally, journalists devoted more text to the opinion of government staff and “experts” than to
demonstrators’ thoughts. An example of this is a 1971 New York Times news story on an antiwar rally held by Vietnam veterans. The reporter asks the Commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars about his thoughts on the protests. The commander responds by saying that “nothing could be further from the truth than to suggest that the demonstrators typified Vietnam veterans.” The commander is a credible source. His thoughts on the protest are important because of his position. However, the reporter goes further. No longer quoting the commander, the writer uses his opinion to start a rant against the demonstrating veterans. “There was no way to take an accurate account of the authentic veterans. Some showed their discharge papers to reporters and others rattled off serial numbers and
88
23
military unit designations.” Relating his assumption to the thoughts of the military source, the Times-reporter questions the authenticity of protesting veterans.89 This fragment illustrates how journalists adhered to the thoughts and interests of their, often conservative, government-based sources while ignoring protesters’ views in their articles. Reporters questioned protesters’ legitimacy, while claims made by pro-war activists or negative reactions to the movement were seldom the subject of scrutiny.
This analysis of contemporary news articles shows that the coverage of student antiwar demonstrations fits the framework of the propaganda model. Activists generated publicity through protesting, but the media spotlight shone on the violent and disruptive aspects of their efforts rather than their views. The highlighting of violence fits the propaganda model, as it served to discredit and delegitimize the antiwar movement. Second, the media gave disproportionate and positive attention to war supporters. Third, the media showed the American public how internal dissent haltered the antiwar movement, which served government’s interests. Fourth, the use of a generational frame fits the propaganda model because describing activists as naïve young Americans looking for something to do discredited the antiwar movement as a whole. Fifth, journalists stressing activists’
ineffectiveness and inability fits the propaganda model. They implied Americans should not take protesters seriously because they did not affect any change, diminishing their credibility and threat to the White House. Sixth, reporters marginalized the number of protesters and compared them to a large number of war supporters. Furthermore, portraying peace groups as communist strongholds antagonized the organizations in the eyes of the public. This hostility to dissenters served the established elite, as the propaganda model predicts. Finally, sources linked to the government steered news publications in directions favorable to the White House, causing journalists to publish forms of propaganda on the antiwar movement. An important event in the course of the Vietnam War and how Americans at home perceived the conflict was the Tet-offensive. The military assault in 1968 changed domestic views on the war. The next chapter discusses how this affected journalists and their publications about the antiwar movement.
89
24 Chapter 3: The search for legitimacy after Tet
The Tet-offensive in 1968 changed many journalists’ personal opinion on the war, so they started to look for ways to legitimize antiwar activists in their reporting. Although the American government presented the battle on Vietnamese new year as a military victory, it was the first time many reporters at the front and at home witnessed warfare in Vietnam. The idea that American involvement was wrong and that the conflict was unwinnable grew hold of journalists.90 As we have
seen reporters often described activists as violent, ineffective, naïve youngsters with ties to communism. Suddenly backing the movement journalists had discredited through “violence”- and “ineffectiveness”-frames would damage their credibility, so the media looked for ways to legitimize antiwar sentiment.91 I analyze these changes in coverage below using articles from the New York Times and Chicago Tribune.
One might expect that the media supported antiwar groups in their writing after Tet, but in reality, they kept working within the framework of the propaganda model. Earlier research showed that news coverage of the antiwar movement did become more sophisticated and fair towards the end of the war, and the following examples show how reporting on antiwar groups became a little more positive.92 However, they also illustrate how despite these changes journalists still covered activists within the boundaries set by the propaganda model.
Police brutality
After Tet, one of the ways reporters legitimized the antiwar movement in news articles was by shifting focus to police brutality when covering demonstrations. Although violence was still a common news angle, police brutality became one of the most important aspects of news stories about Vietnam protest.93 During the National Democratic Convention in Chicago in August 1968, massive antiwar demonstrations were held and violently shut down. Suddenly, American newspapers contained stories of police brutality and excessive force. Journalists no longer framed peace
protesters as naïve rebels looking for a fight. They did not glorify them in news stories either, but now portrayed them as victims of police brutality rather than instigators of violence. A New York Times article about the riots illustrates how reporters no longer solely blamed demonstrators for instigating violence. The journalist writes there was a “Unanimous relief that the Democratic National Convention had ended because “club-swinging policemen” had clashed with “antiwar demonstrators”. The demonstrators are better off than the police officers in the journalists’ description of the conflict. He lets readers envision violent law enforcement officers clubbing 90 Schandler, 194-202. 91 Gitlin, 205-232. 92 Chatfield, 503. 93 Gitlin 195-196.
25
innocent protesters in Chicago. The article continues with quotes from supporters and condemners of the police action. Some Chicago citizens blame the protesters for the riots while others accuse the cops of acting too harsh. The journalist does not take the demonstrators’ side but devotes a lot more attention to their side of the story compared to earlier articles on escalated demonstrations.94
Despite this change in focus, however, the increase in media leniency was more nuanced. Reporters kept discrediting antiwar activists, even when newspapers blamed the police for violent outbursts. In a Chicago Tribune article on the demonstration a reporter blames “armed hippies” for the riots in the paper’s hometown: “Thousands of the protesters, mostly young persons in beards, sandals, and old army clothes. (…) shouted obscenities, chanted slogans, and threw a device made of practice golf balls and nails into the street in an attempt to flatten auto tires.” This fragment shows how the press still portrayed demonstrators as shabby youngsters causing trouble and provoking police. The paper added a photograph of a policeman and protester tussling with the caption “Hippie Attacks Policeman.”95 The picture does not show who instigated the fight between the activist and policeman, but the caption leaves no doubt: the former was to blame for things getting out of hand.
The “Chicago 7”
The media also showed more sympathy for antiwar protesters in articles about the trial of the “Chicago 7”. In the wake of the riots at the National Convention in Chicago in 1968, the police arrested seven dissenters and charged them with conspiring to incite the riots. The trial generated a lot of media attention until the judge finally acquitted the defendants in February 1970. A 1969 New York Times article on the testimony of one of the defendants illustrates the increase in sympathy journalists gained for antiwar activists. The news story contains a report of the statement by Abbey Hoffman, one of the accused. The reporter describes the events in the courtroom: “Under a barrage of Government objections, he tried to explain his views on youth culture, the generation gap, hippies, Yippies, guerrilla theater, the exorcism of the Pentagon and “the politics of ectasy.”” This fragment shows that the journalist believed “a barrage of Government objections” hindered the activist in telling his story. The reporter’s sympathy for the defendant becomes more clear when he writes: “His long brown hair rippled down his back, his printed shirt was open two buttons down his chest, and his eyes mischievously roved over the courtroom.”96 The passage reads almost like a novel, in which the protagonist defies the government and is about to take a stand for a noble cause, no matter the consequences. This description of an antiwar activist sharply contrasts with earlier portrayals of protesters as ineffective youngsters who are just looking to cause trouble. The increase
94
Sylvan Fox, “Violence Perplexes City,” New York Times, August 31, 1968.
95 Author Unknown, “800 Guardsmen Face Hippies in Park, at Hotel,” Chicago Tribune, August 28, 1968. 96
