The media isn't controlling the news flow anymore

Tim Chavez at The Tennessean

During the Vietnam war, the media said the Tet offensive was a major defeat for the US and South Vietnam. Actually it was a military victory per the battlefield but a political defeat. Vietnamese general Giap was removed from command of the North Vietnamese military for the failure of the offensive.

However since the media said it was a defeat and there was no way for people to get other opinions, the majority of the public in the US started to think the war was lost and support for the war and the military fell.

Now things are a little different. With the internet and more importantly, blogs, what the media says can be checked with folks on the ground and their views can get aired. In April and May with lots of bad news from the media, the support for the troops and their mission in Iraq and Afghanistan is still strong. The support has dropped over the last 7 weeks but not nearly as much as it would have if the media and their almost constant negative stories on Iraq were the only news source.

Read Chavez's column about military families and how they are getting news and spreading that news with others.