LBJ might have withstood both the criticism of his TV image and the defection of sages like Walter Lippmann. But he could not survive the steady loss of support from mainstream media. In 1967, Life magazine, long an enthusiastic cheerleader for the Great Society, broke with Johnson over Vietnam. Then in January, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese launched the surprise Tet Offensive against one hundred targets in the South.120 On February 27, CBS-TV aired a dramatic field report from the war zone featuring the revered Walter Cronkite, “the most trusted man in America.” After putting American
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