The death of Walter Cronkite the other day wasn't really all that significant, just as the death of Michael Jackson mattered a lot less than the media said it did.
Not to equate the two by any means, but just as Jackson hadn't been a significant force in music for nearly 20 years, Cronkite had been retired from journalism for even longer. He was the CBS Evening News from 1962-81, when CBS pushed him into retirement and gave his job to Dan Rather.
The most interesting thing about Cronkite isn't that he was charismatic or a compelling performer. He really wasn't either. What he was, though, is everything our "news" isn't anymore -- he was honest and he wasn't opinionated. For all the sniping from the right about him being "just another liberal journalist," for much of Cronkite's career, Democrats thought he was a Republican and Republicans thought he was a Democrat.
If he was the "most trusted man in America," it was because his viewers knew he wasn't trying to sell them his slant on the news. He didn't want to convince people to vote one way or another, and he really didn't give a damn about the ratings.
In short, he was everything today's news business isn't, and the fact that he isn't around anymore at least means that the folks who call themselves journalists these days will no longer have to be embarrassed by what Cronkite might think of them.
Modern journalism has become a squirmy thing, something neither fish nor fowl. In part because of 40 years of attacks from the right for a so-called "liberal bias," journalists these days won't even call someone out for an out-and-out lie.
An example:
It is fairly obvious that President Obama has a birth certificate that says he was born in Hawaii in 1961. Still, a fringe group of "birthers" on the right are insisting that Obama is ineligible to be president and that the birth certificate may be a forgery.
I'm not sure Cronkite would even have covered this story. If he had, though, it would have been to point out that these people don't really have any evidence and they're just trying to sabotage Obama's presidency.
Our modern-day "journalists" tend to treat everything as he-said, she-said, and no matter how ridiculous someone's point of view is, they treat it just as one side of the story.
Part of that is because the right -- there they go again -- say that telling people the story is elitist, that Fox's "We report, you decide" is the truly egalitarian way to go.
Maybe in an educated society, but when 65 percent of adults don't read, there are an awful lot of people who, as the old saying goes, don't know shit from shinola. The irony is that they don't see the news as being any different from pundits' voice on the left or right. If Katie Couric tells them the news and Rush Limbaugh tells them the "truth," who knows who they'll believe?
Covering the news -- whether in broadcast media or in newspapers and magazines -- has gotten so tied up with the cost of paying for it that we don't even really cover news anymore. If it's a choice between explaining Obama's cap-and-trade plan or reporting the latest gossip on Michael Jackson's death, the Jacko story is going to get 90 percent of the coverage.
My guess is this won't last forever. We may be slouching toward Bethlehem looking for a new way of educating people and keeping them informed, and the rough beast that will come out of this might be something we haven't even considered yet.
It won't be Walter Cronkite, though.
Those days are gone.
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1 comment:
Mike, you're wrong.
Let me cit what you've written:
"It is fairly obvious that President Obama has a birth certificate that says he was born in Hawaii in 1961. Still, a fringe group of "birthers" on the right are insisting that Obama is ineligible to be president and that the birth certificate may be a forgery.
I'm not sure Cronkite would even have covered this story. If he had, though, it would have been to point out that these people don't really have any evidence and they're just trying to sabotage Obama's presidency."
I am not at all sure that Cronkite would be as banal as the news departments are today. They are more inclined toward what has been called "infotainment" than true objective news coverage.
You're also wrong -- sincerely and severely wrong -- about the group you denigrate as "birthers."
They are neither a small group (their numbers are growing every day) nor stupid, deranged, or misguided.
Obviously, you are truly unacquainted with the merits of the case. last week in an Orange County courtroom, a judge resisted efforts to once again stifle the people seeking proof of President Obama's "live birth certificate" in light of several affidavits fro people who have testified that Obama's mother was in Kenya two days before his alleged birth and was denied boarding on a plane ultimately destined for Hawaii. She had her son in Kenya.
The alleged document produced by the Hawaii Secretary of State lacks a certification number and the proper documentation evidence.
Moreover, the hiring of two of the largest and most powerful law firms to keep his college records from being made public is not only illegal, it invalidates his pledge to "transparent."
It is the height of both arrogance and deceit to withhold any document when holding his public office.
You need to consider the unthinkable -- that powerful forces are using this President and possibly blackmailing im to do give away the store.
Fascism is the collusion of government and big business. We have that. Even Rolling Stone magazine has printed a major cover story asserting with evidence that investment bank Goldman-Sachs is behind (and manipulating) the Wall Street bailout.
Welfare for industrialists is just wrong, plain and simple.
Mike, sometimes you surprise me with your willingness to plant your head in the sand.
You need to re-examine the facts -- in the same way you've called our attention to Michael Taylor Gatto and others' work to reveal hidden secrets and agendas.
This fight to discover the reality of Obama's birth is led by a woman who immigrated to this country and bacem a naturalized citizen -- much like your beloved wife.
She holds a doctorate and a law degree.
She's no flake.
She just doesn't want the tyranny of her former homeland (Russia) to become the de facto state here in America.
You should investigate before dismissing her efforts.
JEFF IN POMONA
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