Women Correspondents in Vietnam: Historical Analysis and Oral Histories

Abstract

Although women correspondents have covered wars since the Spanish-American conflict, it was not until the Vietnam War that they achieved full access to the battlefield and equal opportunities to cover all aspects of the conflict. Easily attained army accreditation, the burgeoning women's movement and the unique nature of the Vietnam War - a Third World, essentially, political conflict - combined to offer women reporters unprecedented opportunities to cover the war and to prove themselves as worthy members of journalism's elite crew - war correspondents. More women covered Vietnam than any other war. They focused their coverage primarily on the "human interest" angle and the effects of war on its civilian and military victims. This traditional women's focus took on a new prominence in Vietnam, where an understanding of the social and political underpinnings of Vietnamese culture was essential to the success of the American war effort. As a result, the traditional news definition of war as battlefield was widened and the "women's angle" became central to war correspondence. This study presents an historical analysis of the evolution of the role of the woman war correspondent, from the Spanish- American conflict to Vietnam, and presents the oral histories of 10 women who worked as war correspondents in Vietnam.