Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

In the aftermath of America’s withdrawal from Vietnam, critics blasted news coverage of the war, blaming it for turning public opinion against the government and, in effect, losing the war. In defense of its coverage, the news media argued that its job is to take an “adversarial” stance. Herman and Chomsky assert that coverage of the Vietnam War was rarely adversarial and followed the propaganda model more often than not. When the U.S. introduced ground forces and began its devastating bombing campaign in 1965, media support of the war effort was almost unanimous. Any skepticism was limited to “questions of tactics and costs” (172). When political discourse shifted against the war, it was largely due to spiraling costs, and media opinion predictably followed. The framing of the war coverage then followed a failure-of-good-intentions narrative, portraying the U.S. as the savior fighting to prevent communist aggression but sadly unable to work its noble magic against a vicious and amoral foe. The media questioned American judgment but never its morality.

Contrasting Soviet military interventions—Hungary, Poland, Afghanistan—with the U.S. war in Indochina, media and establishment elites routinely framed Soviet interventions as “aggression” while sparing U.S. efforts the harsh rhetoric. Reporters covering Vietnam frequently accepted government sources at their word, never eliciting the perspective of the targets of the U.S. war effort. In contrast, when reporting on Afghanistan, “[I][was] considered essential and proper to observe it from the standpoint of the victims” (177). Further, while the United Nations denounced the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, it did not do the same with the war in Vietnam.

U.S. involvement in Vietnam began in the late 1940s with American support for France’s attempt to reestablish its colonial presence in the region. The French withdrew in 1954, but the U.S. stayed on, determined to oppose a unified Vietnam under communist rule. The U.S. installed Ngo Dinh Diem as Prime Minister; with American backing, he battled Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh, a nationalist military force fighting for Vietnamese independence. Minh enjoyed vast indigenous support, while Diem and his government enjoyed almost none. Without popular support, the U.S. had only one option: find a ruler willing to accommodate Washington’s needs by any means necessary. War and suppression of dissent, it turned out, were the only possible means. Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in which North Vietnamese torpedoes attacked an American spy ship, President Lyndon Johnson committed to full-scale invasion. The physical and cultural devastation of Vietnam was staggering. By the time of the 1968 Tet Offensive, U.S. elites had begun to turn against the war, assessing the damage to be not worth the cost. After Tet, the U.S. stepped up its bombing campaign, expanding beyond the borders of Vietnam to Laos and Cambodia. In the end, the death toll in Indochina reached, by some estimates, 4 million.

For the media to frame the Vietnam War as anything other than mass murder, the authors argue, was “mere apologetics for terrorism and murderous aggression” (184). In fact, media accounts of the war took many forms, but none of them labeled the U.S. war effort as “aggression.” To even critique mainstream news coverage of Vietnam, therefore, is to nitpick, since most of that coverage already proceeds from an apologetic framework. Herman and Chomsky critique it anyway.

The Geneva Accords of 1954 divided Vietnam into North and South, although this division was temporary pending a national election in two years. When the U.S. realized the most likely outcome was a unified Vietnam under communist rule, it undermined the agreement and shifted to a military option. The press, meanwhile, portrayed these developments as an ideological struggle between a dictator and his communist patrons in the North, and a struggling, valiant democracy in the South. Despite Diem’s authoritarianism and repression, the communists—highly popular among the peasantry—still sought a political solution until the violence became untenable and military force was necessary for self-defense. Throughout, both North and South still desired a peaceful settlement, but the U.S., fearing peace would open the door for Soviet or Chinese influence, pressed the generals in Saigon to step up the war effort. The media played along—the U.S. military “resisted” communist infiltration, while the Viet Minh “invaded” the South (in their own country, ironically). Even when the press described atrocities committed by the U.S., those descriptions were “bland” and did not “consider[] [U.S. actions] controversial or as raising any moral issue” (195). When the news media did air controversial footage—“uncensored scenes of combat, atrocities, and destruction” (199)—it was only because of a schism within the elite power structure that had begun to question the costs of the war. Prior to that, public support of the war was consistently high (64%), aligning with the favorable coverage.

The overall effect of this media negligence was twofold: a public ignorant of its own government’s actions—and therefore not likely to press for change—and a green light for the government to continue those actions without fear of consequence. While the networks—ABC, NBC, and CBS—sanitized the images out of Vietnam, deleting any footage of wounded GIs or suffering Vietnamese, the public inferred not only that the war was proceeding according to plan, but that it was free of serious casualties. The Tet Offensive changed all that, and reporters witnessed firsthand the reality of the war—the brutal chaos and death, as opposed to the cleaner version the Pentagon presented. These stark images helped turn the elites against the war, but despite forthcoming peace talks, the war continued. The media, however, focused on the negotiations rather than the intensified fighting. The framework of most of the war coverage was of the U.S. as morally justified liberators protecting South Vietnam against the evil scourge of communism. The media engaged in almost no self-reflection on its propaganda role, and consequently, America’s ultimate withdrawal from Vietnam came as a shock to most people.

The authors then highlight several key moments from the war—the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the Tet Offensive, and the Paris Peace Talks—and critique the media coverage of these moments.

After the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which North Vietnamese patrol boats fired on the U.S. naval vessel the U.S.S. Maddox, the media accepted the government line that the attack was unprovoked. A second altercation between American ships and North Vietnamese torpedo boats triggered deeper American involvement—ground troops—despite evidence that the second attack had never happened. Again, the media never questioned the government’s position that it had the right to “defend itself.” The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized the use of military force, provided cover for the government—with support from the media—in its efforts to escalate the war and forgo a peaceful settlement, which would have invariably placed U.S. interests on the losing side.

The Tet Offensive was the major turning point of the war, militarily and journalistically. Plenty of critics have charged the media’s adversarial stance with turning public opinion against the war. The preeminent critique—Freedom House’s two-volume study—was praised as thorough and comprehensive, but rarely challenged. The report labeled post-Tet reporting a “failure” for “prematurely” proclaiming the war had been lost and souring public support. It faults both the journalism as “incompetent” and the media’s political stance as “hostile to the war and to [President] Johnson” (213). Herman and Chomsky discredit the report for its unquestioned assumptions about America’s noble intentions in the region. Despite both sides claiming victory, the Tet Offensive left much of rural Vietnam in the charge of the communists (NLF), and the Johnson administration in a state of shock. Although military advisors within the administration had concluded after Tet that the war was unwinnable, the Freedom House report placed the blame squarely on the media for “undermining government resolve” (217). Herman and Chomsky also show that opinion polls did not always correspond with media reports, suggesting that the public was not in lockstep with the evening news. They conclude that, despite Freedom House’s charges of “pessimism” from the press, news reports after the Tet Offensive showed a more optimistic tone than even within the White House. While the military brass and the political elite were bemoaning the state of the war, the press still operated within a patriotic framework.

After public opinion had turned against the war and Johnson refused to run for a second term, the U.S. agreed to pursue peace talks, although the bombing campaign continued, shifting from Vietnam to Laos and Cambodia. By 1972, negotiators had hammered out a nine-point peace plan, but Nixon and South Vietnam were opposed. The U.S. still hoped to prevent a unified Vietnam under communist rule; however, the terms of the agreement stipulated one country, one rule. The Nixon administration chose to interpret the agreement differently, suggesting that “one rule” meant the currently installed Government of Vietnam (GVN). Despite the Nixon administration’s attempt to back away from the accord, they nevertheless maintained “peace [was] at hand” (229), all the while continuing arms shipments to South Vietnam. The media accepted this claim without question. When the U.S. eventually signed the peace agreement, it was virtually identical to the one it had rejected years before.

The peace accords clearly articulated the existence of two South Vietnamese political parties, the GVN and the PRG (Provisional Revolutionary Government), both working toward unification, but the U.S. recognized only the GVN, whose president vowed to neutralize any communist influence by force. Thus, the U.S. disregarded the main provisions of the document it had just signed. Predictably, the fighting did not cease, as the GVN, with U.S. support, continued to try to recapture lost territory. The North responded, causing the collapse of the GVN, and in 1975, Vietnam was finally united under a single, communist government.

Since the Vietnam War, the authors assert that the media’s primary job has been damage control. While a 1982 poll showed 72% of the American public considered the war “fundamentally wrong and immoral” (238), the media has tried to conceal the damage and reconstruct the narrative. The war might have been misguided and poorly managed, the press has implied, but it was never the blatant act of aggression that Herman and Chomsky claim it was. Even a “balanced” version of events like the 13-part PBS documentary still serves a propaganda function, because it fails to portray the U.S. as the aggressor despite its bombing, defoliating, and poisoning of vast stretches of Indochina, which resulted in the deaths of millions of Indochinese. Retrospectives of the war misrepresent dissident voices or omit them altogether.

The United States has crafted a self-image of “aggrieved benevolence” (245), but the truth, the authors argue, is more sinister. Fearing that a communist Vietnam might spread its ideology across Asia and create a political counterweight to U.S. global influence, the only acceptable solution was to eradicate the spread by force. While popular opinion holds that the U.S. lost the war in Vietnam, in fact it achieved many of its objectives. The goal of preventing Vietnamese unification might have failed, but by subverting populist movements in neighboring countries—Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines—the U.S. maintained a strong foothold in the region.

The authors then present a meticulous analysis of the PBS documentary series, which they argue was not as balanced as it seemed. No serious anti-war voices were interviewed (or they were given short shrift), it engaged in false equivalencies by giving equal moral weight to both sides, it conveniently ignored important facts, and it failed to take a side. In the end, the award-winning series fits the propaganda model just like the rest of the mainstream media’s Vietnam War coverage.