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Newsweek Editor Lets Cronkite's Son Argue Liberal Bias Is Just 'Open-Mindedness'
News Buster.com ^ | June 2, 2012 | Tim Graham

Posted on 06/02/2012 5:28:42 PM PDT by Kaslin

Newsweek editor Tina Brown published a huge chunk of a letter to the editor objecting to Howard Kurtz’s harsh take on Walter Cronkite. The letter writer? Cronkite’s son Chip. He merely repeated his father’s lame argument that “liberal” means “open-minded,” and isn’t that what a reporter should be?

“Admitting to a liberal philosophy (which he defined as something akin to open-mindedness), while adhering to a career, almost a calling, of the straightest, old-fashioned journalism? This is ‘linguistic hedging’?” Why yes, it is. “His liberal radio editorials were evidence of openness, no?” Why no, they’re not. Why publish hundreds of words of this?

Chip really doesn’t bring much more to the table than “I don’t know.”

Does reporting a proposed German trip indicate contempt for Goldwater? I don’t know.

Did he add another (not very influential, I wouldn’t think) voice for RFK to run? I don’t know.

Is a subsequent interview evidence of a quid pro quo? Maybe, but probably RFK would have been happy to give him an interview anyway.

Chip doesn't know why it might be biased to suggest great affinity between Goldwater and the Nazis of Bavaria (Daniel Schorr knew while he was unloading his slime bucket.) Chip doesn't know why it might seem unseemly to urge a liberal to run for president with the candy and cupcakes of your favorable publicity. In short, Chip doesn't know enough to deserve a letter in Newsweek magazine.

What was his father doing accepting free air travel from Pan Am? Oh, that wasn't Daddy's fault, either:

The free PanAm trips, as I recall, amounted to three. Perhaps that is three more than proper, perhaps not. His party consisted of just him, his wife, and his youngest child, still living at home (me). Other journalists along on the trips were Bob Considine, Art Buchwald, and Neal and Judith Morgan. I blame James Michener for instigating it all, anyway.

Kurtz's point was that Douglas Brinkley's new Cronkite biography shows that too many journalists want to just paint a legend and leave the reality behind. Chip wants to be in that number, and thinks Newsweek should be, too.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: 57states; mediawingofthednc; mymuslimfaith; partisanmediashills

1 posted on 06/02/2012 5:28:46 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

There’s such a thing as being so open-minded your brains leak out.


2 posted on 06/02/2012 5:33:06 PM PDT by RichInOC (No! BAD Rich! (What'd I say?))
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To: Kaslin

Douglas Brinkley casts himself as an historian. He is more appropriately in the propagandists category.


3 posted on 06/02/2012 5:35:51 PM PDT by EDINVA
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To: Kaslin

In high school, friends admonished me to “not be so opened minded that my brains fell out” or “not be so broad minded that I became flat headed.”

I’ve always tried to take that advise. It has served me well!


4 posted on 06/02/2012 5:38:02 PM PDT by cpa4you (CPA4YOU)
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To: Kaslin
liberals are the most closed minded and intolerant of all people, they just don't know it.

Liberals hate anyone who doesn't agree with them and attack anyone and everyone who tries to shatter their closed minded fairy world where socialism/communism actually works.

5 posted on 06/02/2012 5:39:41 PM PDT by TexasFreeper2009 (Obama lied .. and the economy died.)
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To: Kaslin

It’s a total vacuum in there.


6 posted on 06/02/2012 5:43:00 PM PDT by MamaDearest
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To: Kaslin
Walter Cronkite wrote “liberal” columns after retiring from reporting.

But it should have been predicted that journalism as entertainment/self-fulfillment would be socialistic - after all, if you entertain/flatter your audience by promoting the idea that emotional reactions are equivalent to thought, and if you promote the idea that you yourself are more interested in the public welfare than anyone who actually provides a concrete product or service against a bottom line, you are promoting socialism. All socialism is is second guessing, and demanding that your good intentions trump your lack of bottom line productivity.

Journalism is interesting the public. Things that interest the public are quite frequently in opposition to the public interest, tho.

7 posted on 06/02/2012 5:43:29 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which “liberalism" coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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To: Kaslin

It’s often possible to tell a lot about the character of someone by how they treat waiters, drivers, baggage handlers, maids, etc...

You all know who I mean...The “little people”...

My one-time and blessedly brief exposure to Walter Cronkite left me with the solid impression he was an arrogant ass...


8 posted on 06/02/2012 5:44:30 PM PDT by elteemike (Light travels faster than sound...That's why so many people appear bright until you hear them speak!)
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To: TexasFreeper2009
Liberals hate anyone who doesn't agree with them and attack anyone and everyone who tries to shatter their closed minded fairy world where socialism/communism actually works.

Democrats, Hollywood, media and RINOs:

Chinese proverb: “Hatred corrodes the vessel in which it is stored”

9 posted on 06/02/2012 5:57:00 PM PDT by MamaDearest
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To: Kaslin

Classic liberals were open minded.

Liberal and Liberty have long parted company.


10 posted on 06/02/2012 6:02:15 PM PDT by DB
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To: Kaslin

But, liberal bias is closed-minded to conservative thought.


11 posted on 06/02/2012 6:14:21 PM PDT by depressed in 06 (6 November, 2012, the day our embarrassment is sent back to Kenya.)
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To: DB
Liberal and Liberty have long parted company.

So true. What I want to know is who hired Cronkite way back then when they could have had Lowell Thomas, the real patriot. Somebody needs to write a book about THAT.

12 posted on 06/02/2012 6:15:12 PM PDT by Liberty Wins (Newt --named after Isaac Newton?)
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To: depressed in 06

Just remember that leftists are the most intellectually parochial people in the world.


13 posted on 06/02/2012 6:16:56 PM PDT by Chickensoup (STOP The Great O-ppression)
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To: DB

Indeed. Crankenhouse was nothing more than a hard core lefty posing as a reporter. The sad part is many in the US believed him when he ended his nightly propaganda-cast with “And that’s the way it is.”

Pathetic.


14 posted on 06/02/2012 6:17:44 PM PDT by Henry Hnyellar
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To: Kaslin

“Chip doesn’t know why it might be biased to suggest great affinity between Goldwater and the Nazis of Bavaria”

Chip is lying or stupid. His dad was spewing agitprop for Marxists/Communists/Progressives and now he is following his footsteps. These Marxists are so ignorant as they try to tear down and undermine the greatest society in the history of man.

Journalism should be about the truth and as Solzhenitsyn and Sen. McCarthy and many others knew-—there is just lies and agitprop in the US newsrooms. They lied and destroyed Sen. McCarthy (Blacklisted by History: The True Story about Senator Joseph McCarthy). The newspapers create perceptions-—by the way they twist the news and bastardize words-—to the point of today, we have such media created concepts as “homosexual” marriage. Completely a bizarre and silly concept. (and evil)-—all to destroy order and create chaos—especially in the minds of the children.


15 posted on 06/02/2012 6:35:37 PM PDT by savagesusie (Right Reason According to Nature = Just Law)
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To: Kaslin
Kranky blamed it on the Germans. He said when he was with a spearhead advance that undercovered a kampf, he was (not so much outraged about the camp itself) but to the German's protestations that they didn't know it was there. Which in turn, got under his Dutch skin -- no doubt he had cousins serving the Reich.

His other justification for being a puke lib was that he expected anyone who dealt with the huddled masses -- policeman, beat reporters, etc., had to be liberal because of what they saw. I shit you not, this was Uncle Walter's solipsism of life. Chip is a dumbass -- what could anyone else possibly expect from Kranky's get?

16 posted on 06/02/2012 6:56:47 PM PDT by StAnDeliver (=)
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To: Kaslin

From FBI files which have been made public, it is clear Cronkite was supporting America’s enemies and not just a little bit.

In a just world not full of leftist 5th columnists, Cronkite would have been tried, found guilty, then publicly hanged.

Same thing for Jane Fonda.

Actually nearly all journalists would have been hanged for treason, well maybe not. When they saw the first few being strung up they would have piped down with the pro Communist propaganda.


17 posted on 06/02/2012 7:15:41 PM PDT by yarddog
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To: Kaslin

http://74.8.243.132/malr/controller?commandflag=searchByNameID&optflag=ImageSearchCommand&county=ma007&userid=null&userCategory=7&filename=&server=&namespace=&filePath=&instrumentnumber=826&docId=5341524&ptrno=5341524&officeid=70&zoomprop=100&year=2011&convtype=2&volume=01236&volpage=385


18 posted on 06/02/2012 7:52:58 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (If Mugabe Had A Son He'd Look Like Obama)
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To: Kaslin

This is more of the Left softening up the masses for indoctrination into moral relativism. It is thinking born of immature emotions—not reason—just uncontrolled urges to be manipulated by their Marxist masters.


19 posted on 06/03/2012 2:40:22 AM PDT by jonrick46 (Countdown to 11-06-2012)
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