It was a term that came to be associated with the Vietnam war. The expression was first used in the 1960s and 1970s at the height of the US war in Vietnam. The Vietnam War was the first war that was extensively reported on television, bringing the images of the battlefield into living rooms across the world.
It is widely believed that public opinion about that war was shaped by television reporting. The constant, sometimes biased, coverage meant that emotions ran high with people coming out strongly for or against the war.
Prior to this, wars had only been reported on radio and in newspapers, robbing them of the immediacy and horror of live television reporting. With the advent of communications technology, reporters and photographers were stationed at the frontlines to send back blow-by-blow accounts that were aired live. People had their first real experience of war from television!
Closer home, there was criticism about the way in which the 1999 Kargil War was reported by television journalists with one RTI activist alleging that Indian soldiers’ lives were endangered because their locations were revealed to the enemy. The close coverage of the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack by Indian television channels was also criticized for the same reason.
There is also the view that such coverage desensitizes the public to the seriousness of war.
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