printHe reported the news. Nothing but the facts, ma’am. He never pulled faces to demonstrate his exquisitely politically correct sensibilities; he focused on the events, not on himself; he did not promote a brand and an annual book, he wiped a tear once in decades of reporting, and expressed an opinion with the same frequency. He became a personality by default—through the professionalism he evinced and not by cultivating a persona. His political opinions may have been unpalatable, but Walter Cronkite’s professional performance bore little resemblance to the slobbering done by the current crop of cable and TV men and women.
Anderson Cooper, grizzled “newswoman”—who crumbled when the Rev. Wright scandal broke all over his presidential candidate—and cried, “How do we make this go away?”, Don lemon, the Black-In-America disgrace of an anchor, Contessa Brewer, big-faced idiot of the childish, whiny inflection, Obama Boy Keith Olbermann, Hard-for-Obamby-Ball Chris Matthews, FoxNews cleavages for W., Barbara Walters of the “cutting edge” anti-aging reportage and colonic crusader Katie Couric—how dare they claim they are a strand of the Cronkite DNA? How dare they claim to be filling the shoes and following the example of a decent reporter?
But this is precisely what these fools have been doing since Cronkite passed away: cementing their legacy.
The procession of shameless narcissistic, self-aggrandizing and promoting hustlers—these are the news men and women of contemporary America.
Update (July 21): I’m not terribly familiar with Cronkite’s broadcasts, but from the little I’ve seen, he was professional. Those who’re condemning him for his statism and personal politics, of which I’m unaware (and you’d certainly need to know a good chunk of his oeuvre to pronounce on his opinions, as they are not manifest like David Shyster’s of MSNBC are), are in error—exhibiting some categorical confusion and feeble mindedness. For if Cronkite did journalims as one is supposed to, his politics are immaterial. Most journalists are statist. What do you want, a Mencken? But if they stick to their reportorial duties, their personal beliefs should not matter.
While we don’t (yet) have a Ministry of Thought, its hard not to notice the controlled and packaged qualities of TV and especially cable news. While Foxnews berates CNN and the rest as being “liberal” they ALL line up to jointly bash Ron Paul and his supporters as “nutjobs.” They all supported George Bush the Lesser’s misbegotten invasion of Iraq, they all joined in the chicken little hysteria over the “abyss” we faced if we didn’t pass TARP. The internet is the only way the people can discover reality!
Cronkite and the mainstream had their biases and they hobnobbed with the mainstream liberals – but they at least had a sense of ethical standards that the current generation of scandalmongering bloviators lack.
Fox News used to proclaim: We report. You decide.
It should be: We distort. We decide.
Cronkite was a jerk. His garbage about the Tet Offensive helped turn the “sheeple” against our troops in Vietnam. I thought the war sucked, but I sure was not going to support any criticism of our fighting men and women.
If you want to see what old reporting was like, just rent “Apollo 13.” You’ll see many examples, including at the beginning, when Cronkite is covering the first steps of Neil Armstrong on the Moon. He shut up and let the camera and the astronaut record an event that even today fills me with awe.
Can you imagine if we’d landed on the Moon for the first time today? We wouldn’t be able to appreciate the importance of the event; instead we’d be “treated” to Anderson Cooper sobbing like a schoolgirl.