The Living-Room War.

By the 1970s popular support for the Vietnam War had diminished in the United States. As the war became increasingly unpopular with many Americans, the media presented it in a negative light. Prior to the 1968 Tet offensive the media had generally supported the government's position on Vietnam; the majority of the public approved of the war, and the media reported on it favorably. The Tet offensive, however, belied in dramatic fashion government optimism over the war and suggested that the conflict was unwinnable. Even CBS newscaster Walter Cronkite, "the most trusted man in America," spoke out against the claims of politicians and the military, saying the war would result in either a stalemate or defeat. An apocryphal story has President Lyndon B. Johnson telling an aide, "Well, if I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America." An increasingly critical approach...