"It could once have been said that the Vietnam War was the most photographed war in history, but you can't say that anymore, because today everybody has a camera. Everything, it seems, is photographed by someone. But, in 1965, the year the United States put bombers in the air and boots on the ground in Vietnam, pretty much the only people who carried cameras were professional photographers and tourists. And there were not a lot of tourists in Vietnam after 1965."
"American officials may have imagined that the images and stories that made their way out to the world through the media would be heroic, but, of course, the opposite was the case. War is not about blowing up buildings, which is the image of warfare we mainly see today. War is about killing human beings. That is literally the point."
"And so, allowed into the war zone, reporters and photographers witnessed the slaughter of civilians and the brutalization of prisoners, the burning of villages and the deaths of soldiers, and they brought all of that into people's homes. The press helped to turn public opinion against the war, not because the press was antiwar or even had a politics but because war is hell, and hell is photogenic."
Photographers documented the Vietnam War extensively because the U.S. military granted the press broad access. In 1965 professional photographers and a few tourists were the primary image-makers, unlike today when everyone carries a camera. Reporters and photographers traveled with troops, rode helicopters, slept on bases, and interviewed officers, enabling direct coverage. Rather than heroic scenes, the imagery captured killing, civilian slaughter, prisoner brutalization, burning villages, and soldiers' deaths. Graphic photographs brought battlefield realities into homes and helped shift public opinion against the conflict. The visual record highlighted the human cost of war and undercut official expectations of triumphant coverage.
Read at The New Yorker
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