The belief that press coverage of the Vietnam War may have lost that war for the America has meant that journalists have had limited coverage to subsequent conflicts in Grenada, Panama, Kuwait and Afghanistan. In an apparent reversal of policy, during the 800 hours of the Iraq War 20,000 hours of video were shot. But reporting was tightly controlled by the Pentagon and the images that found their way into living rooms provided only a sanitised version of the conflict.
Enemy Image traces the ways US television has covered war, starting with Vietnam in the 1960s and shows how the military has devised ever-improving means of ensuring the American public never again has the real face of combat beamed directly into their living rooms. Comparing footage of Vietnam, including rarely-seen material shot in North Vietnam, to coverage of Iraq and using extensive interviews with veteran war correspondents and news anchors, Mark Daniels demonstrates how television that once revealed the truth is now increasingly used to hide it.