I remember Richard Nixon, Watergate, the Apollo 11 moon landing – and all because of Walter Cronkite.
The guy simply reported the news. He didn’t pick sides, unless the problem was so apparent and vast (like his bit after the Tet Offensive, wherein he stated that the US could not now win in Vietnam, and thereby helped to start the end of the War). He just told us what was happening, to whom and where.
I do enjoy Keith Olbermann, and respect Rachel Maddow greatly, but they are relatively young (in news broadcasting) compared to Mr. Cronkite.
Hopefully, as they (and other younger reporters and tele-journalists) mature, and so does their audience, they will help to fill the void he leaves in the american news landscape.
For many news people today, the distinction between fact and opinion has become so blurred as to be unrecognizable. And when people lie often enough, they end up believing their own alterations and twisting of the facts. Unfortunately we as consumers of news really do not want the news. We want something that is sensationalized, fictionalized and/or prejudiced. And what we get is often propaganda with a hidden agenda.
It should be a law that whenever a provider of the “news” states something other than a fact that is properly sourced, they inform the public that they are not reporting a fact but an opinion, theory, construct, assumption, etc.
And we should have coursework in the schools on how to decipher the messages in the media and how to tell fact from fiction. :star: Otherwise we as a country will continue to be brainwashed into supporting things that are not in our interest and ignoring things that are important and require our attention.
I remember Richard Nixon, Watergate, the Apollo 11 moon landing – and all because of Walter Cronkite.
The guy simply reported the news. He didn’t pick sides, unless the problem was so apparent and vast (like his bit after the Tet Offensive, wherein he stated that the US could not now win in Vietnam, and thereby helped to start the end of the War). He just told us what was happening, to whom and where.
I do enjoy Keith Olbermann, and respect Rachel Maddow greatly, but they are relatively young (in news broadcasting) compared to Mr. Cronkite.
Hopefully, as they (and other younger reporters and tele-journalists) mature, and so does their audience, they will help to fill the void he leaves in the american news landscape.
For many news people today, the distinction between fact and opinion has become so blurred as to be unrecognizable. And when people lie often enough, they end up believing their own alterations and twisting of the facts. Unfortunately we as consumers of news really do not want the news. We want something that is sensationalized, fictionalized and/or prejudiced. And what we get is often propaganda with a hidden agenda.
It should be a law that whenever a provider of the “news” states something other than a fact that is properly sourced, they inform the public that they are not reporting a fact but an opinion, theory, construct, assumption, etc.
And we should have coursework in the schools on how to decipher the messages in the media and how to tell fact from fiction. :star: Otherwise we as a country will continue to be brainwashed into supporting things that are not in our interest and ignoring things that are important and require our attention.