The most trusted man in America
You've heard by now that Walter Cronkite died. Not at all unexpected, but it's still a sad moment. Cronkite's brand of journalism has been dead for a long time but somehow his passing makes it seem more permanent. I'll probably have more to say about it tomorrow but for tonight, it seems kind of fitting for the moment to post a song by Blind Faith.
In 1969 we didn't have the internets. We connected with drugs and music and VW buses. We didn't have 24/7 news except for really important occassions. And for those -- we had Cronkite. [via Pam Leavey]
[More posts daily at The Detroit News]
In 1969 we didn't have the internets. We connected with drugs and music and VW buses. We didn't have 24/7 news except for really important occassions. And for those -- we had Cronkite. [via Pam Leavey]
[More posts daily at The Detroit News]
posted by Libby Spencer at 11:28 PM
6 Comments:
I remember watching him and his sign off, "And that's the way it is today,Saturday, July 18th,2009."
I remember when he cried when JFK died. That seemed really big to me at the time. Men didn't cry then.
It's hard to imagine that half the country doesn't remember him, but it's tragic that his style and quality of unbiased journalism has been replaced by the interpretive charades of Hannity and O'Reilly and all the other opinion shouters and rabble rousers for whom reportage is just another circus sideshow.
It was from him that I learned that Kennedy was indeed dead. I don't remember that he cried, but I did. I remember his calm presence in 1968 when America went mad and the bloody streets of Chicago looked like Baghdad with troops everywhere. I remember him too as a fellow radio amateur and communications history enthusiast and indeed as a fellow boater.
He was certainly the best at what he did, when he did it, but we have sunk so far, I doubt that he could get a job today and if somehow he did, the Limbaughs and the Coulters and the Friends of Fox would be condemning his unbiased reporting with their endless litany of accusations and we would find him too boring.
I was thinking the same thing Fogg. If he was broadcasting today like he was then, the wingnuts would be gunning for him.
In fact I've already seen outraged trolls claiming he was a Communist, a traitor and in the employ of the Viet Cong.
We may or may not have gotten over the Civil War but we sure as hell are still stuck in that rift that opened up with Vietnam.
I'm told he was a very unhappy man in his latter years. I can only imagine what the barking mad idiotic rabble we've become seemed like to him or what he thought about the angertainment industry that replaced journalism.
It must have been like losing a child at too young an age for him. It breaks my heart too.
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