Gene, your uber-hero Cronkite was a first class liar and hypocrit. His lies cost the lives of THOUSANDS of young men in Vietnam (both American AND Vietnamese) and extended the war by several years.
The best thing he did for your and your cronies, was to provide the model for how to lie, manipulate and propagandize the news so that people like you could learn his method and keep doing it.
Well, we’re on to you, Gene, and elevating this propagandist mass murderer the way you and your colleagues have, does NOTHING to improve your standing with real Americans. We all know that CRONKITE LIED, PEOPLE DIED!!!!
Cronkite was Ted Baxter without the looks. Of course, Ted Baxter was patterned after Bill Kurtis who I’ve worked with on stories and who truly is clueless without the teleprompter or producer whispering in his earpiece.
Cronkite, Rather, and the rest told both lies they knew were lies and lies they assumed were true but never checked out. From their viewpoint the truth of a story was whether it conveyed the truth about the overall story and damn the details.
Thus if the overall truth is that war is hell, then it is irrelevant whether the details they report on any given day are true or not, just as long as they convey the overall truth that war is hell.
The situation I like the best is the Kent State Riots based on Cronkite, Rather, etal told everyone that Nixon-Kissinger had expanded the war into Cambodia and Laos. Of course, Kennedy had small forces in Laos and Johnson larger forces in both Laos and Cambodia (including my unit in Laos).
Cronkite, Rather, etal knew that they were reporting a lie in saying that Nixon-Kissinger expanded the war. Yet it served their agenda to create more awareness ... in places like Kent State ... of the need to oppose the war.