Chapter Summary: Vitenam War, Bringing the Battlefield into the American Living Room

Not only did the beginning of television news coincide with the Civil Rights Movement but also emerged at the same times as the U.S. military buildup in Vietnam. In 1963 evening news programs expanded from fifteen minutes to half an hour, allowing the Vietnam War to be the first televised war in American History. The televising played a key role in turning the public against the War, hastening the end of the conflict that was thought to have none. Violence, carnage, and human suffering were depicted in withering reality, "The Television gave the American People vivid images of the war which they never could have gotten from reading newspapers or periodicals."-Edward Shils