Posted on 10/04/2005 6:55:59 PM PDT by Chi-townChief
He's in his late 80s, a little unsteady on the legs and, as he describes it, "as deaf as a damn post." Former "CBS Evening News" anchor Walter Cronkite might be a lion in winter, but during a brief visit to Los Angeles earlier this week he showed that he's still a lion.
Cronkite, who retired from the anchor chair in 1980, has had a quarter-century to watch broadcast news from the sidelines, and he doesn't think the current generation of TV journalists is doing a bad job. Corporate broadcast owners, though, are another story, says Cronkite. He believes they are paying more attention to Wall Street than to the health of the democracy at a time when the nation's dedication to education has wavered.
"We [as a nation] are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders," Cronkite, 88, said during a day of speeches and interviews Tuesday at USC's Annenberg School for Communication, where he helped present the biannual Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism.
Cronkite issued a call-to-arms for fellow journalists — primarily broadcast — to pressure "our employers, those who are more concerned with profits than they are with performance," to replace the current roundups of celebrity profiles and personal health and finance pieces with "the news of the day."
"If we fail at that," Cronkite said, "our democracy, our republic, I think, is in serious danger."
---snip---
Given the criticism Cronkite has leveled over the years, he was surprisingly supportive of current broadcast journalism, though he separates the talking heads of many cable shows from network journalists reporting for the evening news shows. In a brief interview, Cronkite said he fears the blogosphere, still in its "infancy," could threaten the standing of mainstream media as a news source for consumers already confused by cable's "opinion journalism." It is the function of the educational system, he believes, to train people to understand the difference.
And he endorsed the traditional single-anchor format he helped pioneer over some of the alternatives, including multiple anchors in multiple cities, reportedly being considered by CBS news chief Leslie Moonves to make the evening news more palatable to younger viewers.
"I just hope they're careful with it," Cronkite said. "I hope they're not bent on changing the format because they want to be more entertaining. We've got to be on guard constantly to eschew entertainment in the news. That's not our function. If we undertake it ... we're going to be cheating the public."
Profits are performance. If you don't think so, put up your own money to start a network and ignore profits in favore of "performance".
BTW, this is an excerpt.
"Uncle Walter" is a-lyin' right now...
But that shouldn't surprise anyone who's been paying attention over the years.
Well, he's right in one regard... do any of us really give a **** that Celebrity A and Celebrity B got engaged while filming an inane movie in Acapulco?
Is this guy got Alzheimers or WHAT? This is some of the stupidest crap I have ever heard. This is stupid even for Walter the Commie wanna be. Talk about a sever case of projecting their own flaws onto the people they disagree with. Must really piss him off that all us little Peons don't need him and his 'enlighted ones'. What a good little Stalin wanna be he is.
actually, I think it was a typo, it was "dumb" not "deaf".
Crackup, we want you fearful. You're just better that way. And, BTW, I like being confused by opinion journalism -- at least these guys on cable aren't afraid to say that they are editorializing!
lmao... BARRRRFFFFF!!!!!
The man does make a good point.
Cronkite said, "our democracy, our republic, I think, is in serious danger."
&&
The danger comes from commie-lovin', monica-envying,
so-called journalists like you, Walter. Put a sock in it!
No one is the Lion in Winter as the great Peter O'Toole..
oops..the article read that commie cronkite was the lion in winter..I missed that part..sorry..
I would ask Cronkite this question. When was the last election Americans were educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders?
So what election do you think he would say?
Walter Cronkite set the standard for TV journalism which has never been matched. He may be partisan now, but he was unmatched as a journalist in his time working at CBS. Way too many sour grapes flying in here about America's most trusted man.
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