Did colour televsion have a huge impact on Vietnam War decisions?
I agree with anumber. Color television didn’t have as much of an impact as the fact of television news coverage. Although mostly before the advent of rapid high speed satellite transmission of news stories from the war theater, as we have today in Iraq, the networks were usually able to show film taken about a day before on that evening’s news broadcasts. Also, the 7:00 national news broadcasts from the three major networks–ABC, NBC and CBS–became an institution, watched by most families. It’s one thing to read about American sons being ambushed by the Viet Cong in a Vietnamese field, it’s another to see it happen, and see the helicopters fly in to take away the wounded while the reporter, his voice filled with emotions, explains what is happening. Color television, for those who had it (far from everyone) would intensify the experience, but the bare fact of near-realtime news footage from the war was the important fact.
