If they were left-wingers, you were already getting the brainwashing (perhaps more subtle, but still there). I’m a decade behind you in age and got the brainwashing in public school and stood up to it about that same time 3 1/2 decades ago.
When Cronkite was powerful enough to deliberately sabotage our mission in Vietnam based on LIES (we were not losing, we were winning), it showed how truly dangerous these so-called “journalists” were. Even before Cronkite, you had Edward R. Murrow, and he sought to destroy Sen. Joe McCarthy and his exposure of Soviet and pro-Soviet sympathizer infiltration into our government and institutions.
That they are respected in any way is sickening. The damage they did is incalculable.
Heck, forget Cronkite, or Murrow, or even Duranty. This whole leftist rot in “objective” news sources (the quotes are meant to indicate sarcasm) was there since Walter Lippmann even formed Objective News Media, and such was by design. Just read up ProgressingAmerica, and you’ll see what I mean by that.
And I’m just going by America alone. If I were to go even farther back, I’d even argue that that whole mess started with the Enlightenment via Voltaire and his cronies when they took over the French Academy in their agenda against Christianity.