Vietnam War (1959-1975):
By the 1960's, television was a trusted medium for news to the American public. Meanwhile, the U.S. government, for the first time, deregulated war press coverage in hopes of gaining public support of a potentially unpopular war. News correspondents, having front line access to the Vietnam War, used television’s capacity to visually excite by providing breaking news at lightning speed.
Thus began the first and only "Living Room War,” also known as "The Television War."
Americans turned to television as their primary news-source.
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Americans trusted television more than any other news media.
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Vice President Hubert Humphrey acutely observed:
“This is the first war in the nation's history that's been fought on television, where the actors are real, where,
in the quiet of your living room, of your home, or your dormitory, wherever you may be; this cruel, ugly, dirty
fact of life and death and war and pain and suffering comes right to you, and it isn't a Hollywood actor.”
However, media's easy access to war unwittingly defined future war press coverage policy.
