Dates to keep straight
Two of the best-known media moments linked to this period fall slightly outside 1967 or need careful dating. Walter Cronkite’s special report on Vietnam, in which he said the war appeared to be heading toward a stalemate, aired on CBS on 27 February 1968, after the Tet Offensive. It was an aftermath, not a 1967 event. Time magazine’s cover story on the hippies, by contrast, appeared in July 1967. This article looks at what the media did in 1967 and treats the Cronkite broadcast as what followed.
Television and the war
By 1967 television news was the main source of information for many Americans, and the Vietnam War was a regular feature. It is often called the first “living-room war”, because footage from the field appeared in nightly broadcasts. Film had to be shipped to the United States before it was shown, so reports usually appeared a day or more after events.
What viewers saw was not always what later memory suggests. Many historians argue that, for much of the war, television coverage followed the official line of the government and military, with reporters relying heavily on briefings. Battle reports tended to focus on American operations and casualties, and criticism of the war appeared more slowly. Reports from reporters in the field, though, sometimes conflicted with official optimism. This gap contributed to what commentators called a credibility gap between the government and the press.
In late 1967 the administration made a public effort to stress progress. General Westmoreland, visiting Washington in November, spoke confidently about the course of the war, and the next few months were to show how far that optimism could be tested by events. Opinion polls through 1967 recorded growing doubt, with the public increasingly divided over whether the war was worthwhile. The question of how far television caused this is difficult to answer, since the war’s length, rising casualties and the draft also had effects on opinion, and no single factor can be separated out with confidence.
The hippies on page and screen
In July 1967 Time put the hippies on its cover with a long article describing their philosophy and way of life. Coverage of this kind introduced the movement to a national audience at the start of the Summer of Love. Other magazines, newspapers and television programmes followed. CBS reportedly broadcast a documentary on the subject later that summer.
Mass attention had a double effect. It gave a name and an image to something that had been small and local, and it brought in many visitors and runaways to the Haight-Ashbury district. Residents often felt that the coverage distorted what they were doing, emphasising drugs and clothing and sometimes ignoring community projects. The attention was part of the reason the scene changed so quickly.
Meanwhile the underground press offered a different version, written by participants for participants, and challenged the mainstream account.
Riots and race
Urban unrest in the summer of 1967, particularly in Newark and Detroit, was covered extensively by newspapers and television. Images of burning buildings and armed troops shaped how many white Americans viewed the events. Later, the Kerner Commission, appointed by President Johnson in July 1967, criticised the press for its coverage of race and for employing few Black journalists, in a report published in 1968.
Media theory and public service
Observers at the time also tried to describe the changes. Marshall McLuhan’s work, including The Medium Is the Massage (1967), argued that the form of a medium shapes society as much as its content. In November 1967 Congress passed the Public Broadcasting Act, which led to the creation of a public alternative to commercial networks.
The aftermath in early 1968
The Tet Offensive began on 30 January 1968. Reports of attacks across South Vietnam, including on the American embassy in Saigon, contrasted sharply with the optimistic official statements of late 1967. Cronkite visited Vietnam afterwards and, in his special report of 27 February 1968, offered his view that the war was likely to end in stalemate. President Johnson is reported to have been affected by the broadcast, though accounts of his exact reaction vary, and he announced in March that he would not seek re-election.
Historians still debate how much influence the special had. It is safer to say that it showed how far respected news figures had moved, rather than that a single broadcast changed policy.
A cautious summary
The evidence suggests that media in 1967 both shaped and mirrored what Americans thought. Television and magazines gave the public pictures and phrases that framed the war, the hippies and the riots, but audiences also interpreted them in light of their own experience and politics. Claims that the press alone turned opinion in any direction should be treated with caution.