Media is there to inform truthfully and entertain.

Media is there to inform truthfully and entertain. In Cronkite’s opinion, the opposite is true, and
media should be speculative, subjective and personal. When informing, the media leans towards one
side and expects to persuade the reader to follow suit. Readers may lack an alternative media view
and therefore tend t agree with the media. In Cronkite’s “Report from Vietnam”, the broadcast
addresses the Tet outcome in which he pretends to take a middle ground, but in actual sense he is a
government apologist. Cronkite speaks for the government, and in fact Alsop accuses him of
controlling the president. Society is against the Vietnam involvement but Cronkite goes to great
pains to demonstrate why Americans must not quit. To Alsop, Cronkite and government lean on the
opposite side of the opinion balance. Normally a middle position indicates confusion and lack of
principles.
Media wrestles with public opinion. When referring to contradictions Cronkite repeats the term
“standoff”, to drum up support for his opinions. He asserts that America neither won nor lost the
war, that America’s position along the demilitarized zone is precarious and could easily result in
massive losses of American lives, national pride, and morale. This is meant to make the public
sympathetic to the Tet campaign. He then cheekily refers to the American involvement as a tragic
stubbornness. In the thinking of the author, America can hold the line, but the Vietnam government
cannot even control its other cities in the south. The young nation is not resilient, reason for America
to stay on. Alsop differs. He opines that Cronkite is an overrated opinion-maker, but who has taken
the wrong stand. Braestrup reinforced Alsop’s opinion by noting that true journalism had veered
from the truth, and shaped public opinion the wrong way.
Cronkite further rails at the political establishment in America and Vietnam, who see brighter days
ahead. They are guided by the withdrawal of the north because they are unable to sustain a long-
drawn war. The north made a winter attack on hundreds of southern cities, not to win but to force a
negotiation. Victory was not in sight but neither was defeat for Americans, instead it was a war of
attrition. The author seems of the opinion that a negotiated settlement is better than another
offensive. Alsop, looked at the communist cause sympathetically when he pleaded with readers to
consider the communists position, just 12 day after the offensive began. He states that Americans
were suffering, but in reality the north had lost more people than the south. Hundreds of
northerners both military and civilian died in American retaliation, but still America was badly
embarrassed at being caught off guard, so they used propaganda, through the likes of Cronkite, to
cover it up. The public hear has no true picture to go by, so they rely on rumors. Alsop differed with
Cronkite’s support for continued offensive. The president favored offensive, but Alsop claims to
speak for the masses calling for withdrawal. He notes that Tet was a resounding military and
psychological failure. Alsop blames the media for misreporting the conduct of the war, leading to a
loss of confidence, but book author, Oberdorfer differs. The press, by being pro-war, lost public
sympathy. Peter Braustrup claims that if the Americans had lost, then it would have been a loss for
all America. He further claims that Cronkite was not as influential a journalist as he believed himself
to be, and his reporting “Report from Vietnam did not impact so much on the listener’s action. But
Cronkite had backed the wrong horse. Cronkite’s double speak made Americans believe that the war

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was unwinnable despite superior power. In the end, Halberstam lauded Cronkite as the most
valuable reporter of the time.
It therefore is true that media shapes public perception. It also creates bias that can sometimes be
contrary to truth. When media influences the leaders, it changes policy as well, as happened with
President Johnson

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Works Cited