Vietnamkriegs-Berichterstatter als unerreichtes Vorbild? Selbst- und Fremdzuschreibungen einer Reporter-Generation Lars KLEIN This article deals with the myth that has developed on American war reporting from Vietnam. A group of reporters around David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan and Peter Arnett has been described as influential “generation” of war correspondents. While the article finds that the group can indeed be described as “generation” according to the classic theory of Karl Mannheim, this theoretical approach does not help to fully understand the meaning and function of the group. Rather, the “Vietnam generation” of war correspondents has to be understood as a construction which helped the journalists to find their place in the media establishment. They have been among the first correspondents of the American war in Vietnam, worked for influential institutions, received awards early on and have been singled out by politicians and military personnel as being responsible for undermining American support for the war. Thus politicians and military officials made the journalists scapegoats and referred to them to justify tighter media regulations. The reporters themselves successfully placed the idea that it was their work that laid the foundations for critical media reporting after the Tet offensive and during the Watergate scandal. By using generational vocabulary this understanding not only works against a re-evaluation of the Vietnam years, but is transmitted further. The myth of a free and influential reporting from Vietnam, understood as norm and ideal, gave legitimacy to later reporters but also provided an unrealistic basis for their work.