In earlier eras the media was not what it is today, with real time information being relayed over satellites to show you live pictures of bombs hitting Belgrade. It started with information being released through reporters typing on manually operated typewriters, then to radio shows where families would gather around the one radio in the house and listen nightly to the news broadcast. Then as it was during World War II, it was movie tone news that was broadcasted at each movie house when you went to watch a show. At the time the

During the era of the Cold War people were on edge we had just ended the largest war of the world's history and were already eye to eye with another enemy, the communist. The spread of communism caused people to become scared of another major war that would take more young American lives. This became a major discussion of the media. The attack by North Korea south of the 38th parallel brought the U.S. in to another war. This one against a smaller country backed by a major rival, the communist. As usual, with the first American military involvement started off with a supportive public view of their government's policy. However with the increase of American casualties and the rate of casualties (Mueller 1985 36) when the Chinese entered the war the publics support slowly began to drop. Then General Douglas MacArthur Supreme Commander of UN Forces started to make statements to various media outlets that we should drop nuclear weapons on North Korea and China. The media began giving this war negative coverage due to the fact that the American people were already knowledgeable of the destructive capabilities of the A-bomb from the Hiroshima, and Nagasaki incidents from the previous war. The people were fine with the previous use of the weapon because it saved the needless lose of more American Soldiers. However to use it again would mean many innocent civilian casualties. Then adding to the media fire General MacArthur continued to make statements to the media after President Truman ordered him not to. This dispute between the two high profile leaders, received negative media coverage which took support away from the war for the sole reason it was a controversial. Eventually MacArthur was fired by President Truman which received much press that took away from positive coverage of the war. Even though the media did not have much negative news about the war the sheer controversy between Truman and Mac Arthur gave a bad image to the Korean War that was not around during the Second World War. Support of this war was fading before the negative media assistance, but the media did give it a push down in the polls.

As early as October of 1954 the United States had been supporting, supplying and training the South Vietnamese Military. Starting in February 1965 the U.S. started playing in active role in the war between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, first with air attacks then with ground troops landing in South Vietnam in March of 1965 to protect U.S. base from Viet Cong attacks. Defense Secretary McNamara's promise of removal of all U.S. troops by 1965 was over. As always the public support at the opening of the war was a strong sense of "rally behind the flag". Many thought that even though the war was not directing threatening the United States, the thought of stopping the communist and the so called domino "affect" was reason enough for sending troops temporally to help an ally. No one thought we were entering the longest and costliest war in the history of the United States. However as the war dragged on the media showed and told of the casualties the public became more and more bitter for the idea of war. Unlike the previous wars fought the people at home were no longer trying to "support the war effort" television and other media facilities had damaged the before censored image that the public thought of war. There were no movies and service announcements that told of great triumph and heroic acts by the unselfish. Then a tactical victory for the military happened as they repelled the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong's Tet Offensive. This also happened to be the United States worse strategic loss of the war. The Viet Cong had brought the war to the streets where U.S. television and newspaper reporters saw and reported on the horror of the terrorist like attacks and the brutal punishment for suspected enemies. The American people saw women and children burned and killed by bombs planted and thrown in restaurants in the cities thro

Some common words found in the essay are:
CNN CSPAN, Air Force, Tom Brokaw's, Vietnam War, Norman Rockwell's, World War, Secretary McNamara's, Viet Cong, CNBC CNN, David Brinkley, public opinion, media coverage, support war, world war, korean war, media public, vietnam war, air force, positive media coverage, war effort, home front, media changed cnn, support war effort, msnbc cnbc cnn, fury eldorado canyon,
Approximate Word count = 4116
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page double spaced)