Cronkite:
Tonight, back in more familiar surroundings in New York, we'd like to sum up our findings in Vietnam, an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective. Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I'm not sure. The Vietcong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. Another standoff may be coming in the big battles expected south of the Demilitarized Zone. Khesanh could well fall, with a terrible loss in American lives, prestige and morale, and this is a tragedy of our stubbornness there; but the bastion no longer is a key to the rest of the northern regions, and it is doubtful that the American forces can be defeated across the breadth of the DMZ with any substantial loss of ground. Another standoff. On the political front, past performance gives no confidence that the Vietnamese government can cope with its problems, now compounded by the attack on the cities. It may not fall, it may hold on, but it probably won't show the dynamic qualities demanded of this young nation. Another standoff.

We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that Hanoi's winter-spring offensive has been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that -- negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer's almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.

1968 Transcript of Broadcast

AnthonySEaston (8:54:36 PM): the arguement about cronkite, i think, i want to make
AnthonySEaston (8:55:04 PM): is that there was an increase in reporotage, often same day, or very clsoe, from the battle fields, in a verite way
AnthonySEaston (8:55:25 PM): that was limited by a television audience that had limited broadcast media options
AnthonySEaston (8:55:50 PM): but then i wonder, about the radical dissemanations, of broadsheets and the like (ie Ramparts)

Cronkites Public acclaim shaped during the momentus evens of the 60s, when held tempered seriousness with human dispalys and won over both elite and working class viwers , was not a product of media hero worship. In 1968, Cronkites objectiosn to the Vietnam War, drove Johnson out of Office...
News is People, Craig M Allen, 1981

most of the sources ive seen, tell the legend of cronkite, of the broadcast, but dont tell about cronkites politics, or why cronkite was so respected, and also do not source the all impt lost middle america qoute (allen suggests it was everyone he lost)

As The Tet Offensive Ebbed, Television Journalists tried to evaulate its signigance. The most famous assesment came from Walter Cronkite, who spent a week in fvietnam and offered his conulsions, in a remakrable half hour special on Feb 27th. Once a supportor of the US War Effort,(He) returned from Vietnam assured that victory was not possible...Cronkites advoacy of disengagement did have a significant effect on Johnson, but only because it confirmed the wide spread dissatisfaction with the adminstrations policy...
The War on Televison...Charles Pach, 467, in the Companion to the Vietnam War, Blatt, etc

four questions here:
1) halberstroms vietnam essays were first person, as were the photoworkers from Time/Life, and many others, vietnam's seminal imagery (the burnt child, the excution) comes widely dissematied, so how did this affect coverage at home
2) the rise of a visual, vernacular culture of both pro and anti war, and meta constructions of these images, and then the professional nostaliga gigs, is this the start of echo chambers (ie photojournalist to la arts/workers collective, what was the exact path of that; or arbus' photo of the young war protester, as grotesqery; or the peita/kent state thing)
3) how did we get from dead bodies in popular weeklies to Rumsfield 2003 desc. not to have any photos at all
4) the implications and history of the embedded fotog

the thing about cronkite, is that he claimed no victory, but also did nto call it shameful, etc