What conservatives labeled "liberal" in the 1960s were some few outlets occasionally reporting actual facts. For instance, CBS News reporting from Vietnam which at times showed the brutal futility of our intervention in that civil war, and some--few--news organizations reporting on the African American struggle for civil rights.

But these were a very few bright spots in the otherwise wall to wall conservative media framing of the "news." Time magazine is a good example--it went all in on McCarthyism in the 1950s and was gung ho on Vietnam all through the '60s. At one point it even accused Charlie Chaplin of being a Communist sympathizer. It was, in essence, Fox News before there was Fox News.

David Halberstam wrote an excellent history of 20th century American journalism: The Powers That Be. He was a New York Times reporter in Vietnam, and describes how difficult it was to get the actual story told to the American public.

Last edited Tue May 5, 2026, 12:46 PM - Edit history (1)

He misspoke/embellished/exaggerated/mislead/misrepresented/distorted/dissembled/mistook…and for decades the NYT has parsed Trump’s bloviating sludge (speeches) and served it up as lucid political dialogue..