While I am not old enough to remember Edward R. Murrow, I am certainly old enough to remember Walter Cronkite (who I actually had the privilege of meeting once). I remember his tearful reporting of the Kennedy Assassination, his giddy childlike reporting on the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, and most of all his reporting from Vietnam that the war was not going as we were being led to believe by the Johnson Administration. When Walter said the war was unwinnable, LBJ new it was all over for him. As I recall, he announced that he would not run for re-election not long after. Unlike today's media elites, Cronkite was far more interested in informing his audience than in maintaining access to the White House. And he was not alone.
There is no Walter Cronkite today. Sure, there is MSNBC, but it is weak sauce. There is Keith Olberman, but he is now relegated to a podcast (a good podcast, but a podcast none the less) and we have Greg. But what we need is a national press corps that, like Walter, was more interested in keeping the public informed than in being invited to the next GOP cocktail party...or fancy steak dinner with Jason Miller (lookin at you Kerstin Welker).
Spot on again Greg. Especially the Covid part. I hold Trump and his MAGA followers responsible for most of the preventable deaths. He politicized it , tried to brush under the rug, and so many died. As a 45 year plus RN, I watched people get sick and die because they followed him.
We're living in an era where information accessibility has exploded. We can choose as democratic citizens to learn how to think for ourselves and try to discern what is and isn't true and how it all fits together, our we can choose the easier path of allowing authoritarians or fascists to tell us what to think. The MAGA cult path is easy. Until it's not.
I know you're busy but I recommend a companion book about the history of modern radio called "Something In The Air: Radio, Rock And the Revolution That Shaped A Generation" by Marc Fisher (WaPo reporter). The book briefly interweaves early days of radio and TV then focuses on the history/evolution of modern radio. Disclosure: my father worked for Tod Storz, who is credited with being one of the pioneers who revolutionized local radio engineering, promotion and programming and is mentioned in the book!
Uncle Walter. I remember him, although I was only a child -- yes, there ARE some things that are older than me! Of course he was the most trusted man in America. He delivered the news and didn't paint it to suit his bias like most of today's media does. Even when he delivered the news of JFK's assassination, he didn't say anything other than the facts. He didn't say it was horrible, or that it was shocking or even sad -- he was shocked, horrified and saddened by it, but he took, at most two seconds to recover, before he went back to delivering NEWS. That is gone today. I don't mind it much because it's usually the truth, but even hard newscasters will slip in an opinion on whatever they're reading. There is no more the most trusted man in America because it seems that no one can really be trusted 100% of the time. THAT is what is sad about what's happened to the news. As soon as they became a profit center, and not a simple public service, they had to start bringing in eyeballs and that means sensationalizing no matter how you cut it.
As a White male, it’s easy for me to understand the desire to go back to the good old days when, among other things, the news was fact-based and relatively free of commercial influence—and presented by White males. And I miss that, too. But as a liberal progressive, I understand how important to society’s ultimate maturing it was to start blowing up the patriarchy and open the Pandora’s Box of diversity. I really believe that what in the short range appears to be a hopeless fragmentation of our society will, in the long run, prove to be the learning of our society of what works and what doesn’t. Maybe this is our Rumspringa period. I could do without for-profit news, though!
Memories of the old CFR guys, hmm...thanks for jarring a few loose today Greg! Understanding the spawn of Clinton’s 1996 signing a revised Telecommunications Act certainly signaled ice berg straight ahead epoch... thanks for a fabulously crafted piece!!
Thank you, Greg. I hear a lot about "bring back the fairness doctrine", but that restriction on the First Amendment cannot happen again.
The Fairness Doctrine only applies to Air Broadcast programs since the public own that communication channel.
Cable and streams are privately owned, so the Fairness Doctrine cannot restrict free speech on them.
Also, all TV news operations during that era lost money, so the networks saw them as pretty "hood ornaments" and competed on accuracy and coverage, just to show off.
Those days show the kind of news coverage we desperately need today, but sadly can never have again in America.
Note: The GOP hated (and still hates) PBS as a "truth teller" so they crippled government funding of the network, rather than support honesty in the news.
What burns me up the most is that almost none of the crimes of #Putin and #Trump and the #GOP are ever shown on Fox. There's just too much money at stake for our super-rich owners.
All very sad.
Bonus: A picture of "good buddies" #Putin and #Murdoch viewing his gift of a Super Bowl ring to the dictator...
While I am not old enough to remember Edward R. Murrow, I am certainly old enough to remember Walter Cronkite (who I actually had the privilege of meeting once). I remember his tearful reporting of the Kennedy Assassination, his giddy childlike reporting on the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, and most of all his reporting from Vietnam that the war was not going as we were being led to believe by the Johnson Administration. When Walter said the war was unwinnable, LBJ new it was all over for him. As I recall, he announced that he would not run for re-election not long after. Unlike today's media elites, Cronkite was far more interested in informing his audience than in maintaining access to the White House. And he was not alone.
There is no Walter Cronkite today. Sure, there is MSNBC, but it is weak sauce. There is Keith Olberman, but he is now relegated to a podcast (a good podcast, but a podcast none the less) and we have Greg. But what we need is a national press corps that, like Walter, was more interested in keeping the public informed than in being invited to the next GOP cocktail party...or fancy steak dinner with Jason Miller (lookin at you Kerstin Welker).
Spot on again Greg. Especially the Covid part. I hold Trump and his MAGA followers responsible for most of the preventable deaths. He politicized it , tried to brush under the rug, and so many died. As a 45 year plus RN, I watched people get sick and die because they followed him.
We're living in an era where information accessibility has exploded. We can choose as democratic citizens to learn how to think for ourselves and try to discern what is and isn't true and how it all fits together, our we can choose the easier path of allowing authoritarians or fascists to tell us what to think. The MAGA cult path is easy. Until it's not.
Excellent discussion!
I know you're busy but I recommend a companion book about the history of modern radio called "Something In The Air: Radio, Rock And the Revolution That Shaped A Generation" by Marc Fisher (WaPo reporter). The book briefly interweaves early days of radio and TV then focuses on the history/evolution of modern radio. Disclosure: my father worked for Tod Storz, who is credited with being one of the pioneers who revolutionized local radio engineering, promotion and programming and is mentioned in the book!
Here's a link to Publishers Weekly review:
https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780375509070
You’re such a good writer.
Uncle Walter. I remember him, although I was only a child -- yes, there ARE some things that are older than me! Of course he was the most trusted man in America. He delivered the news and didn't paint it to suit his bias like most of today's media does. Even when he delivered the news of JFK's assassination, he didn't say anything other than the facts. He didn't say it was horrible, or that it was shocking or even sad -- he was shocked, horrified and saddened by it, but he took, at most two seconds to recover, before he went back to delivering NEWS. That is gone today. I don't mind it much because it's usually the truth, but even hard newscasters will slip in an opinion on whatever they're reading. There is no more the most trusted man in America because it seems that no one can really be trusted 100% of the time. THAT is what is sad about what's happened to the news. As soon as they became a profit center, and not a simple public service, they had to start bringing in eyeballs and that means sensationalizing no matter how you cut it.
As a White male, it’s easy for me to understand the desire to go back to the good old days when, among other things, the news was fact-based and relatively free of commercial influence—and presented by White males. And I miss that, too. But as a liberal progressive, I understand how important to society’s ultimate maturing it was to start blowing up the patriarchy and open the Pandora’s Box of diversity. I really believe that what in the short range appears to be a hopeless fragmentation of our society will, in the long run, prove to be the learning of our society of what works and what doesn’t. Maybe this is our Rumspringa period. I could do without for-profit news, though!
Memories of the old CFR guys, hmm...thanks for jarring a few loose today Greg! Understanding the spawn of Clinton’s 1996 signing a revised Telecommunications Act certainly signaled ice berg straight ahead epoch... thanks for a fabulously crafted piece!!
Thank you, Greg. I hear a lot about "bring back the fairness doctrine", but that restriction on the First Amendment cannot happen again.
The Fairness Doctrine only applies to Air Broadcast programs since the public own that communication channel.
Cable and streams are privately owned, so the Fairness Doctrine cannot restrict free speech on them.
Also, all TV news operations during that era lost money, so the networks saw them as pretty "hood ornaments" and competed on accuracy and coverage, just to show off.
Those days show the kind of news coverage we desperately need today, but sadly can never have again in America.
Note: The GOP hated (and still hates) PBS as a "truth teller" so they crippled government funding of the network, rather than support honesty in the news.
What burns me up the most is that almost none of the crimes of #Putin and #Trump and the #GOP are ever shown on Fox. There's just too much money at stake for our super-rich owners.
All very sad.
Bonus: A picture of "good buddies" #Putin and #Murdoch viewing his gift of a Super Bowl ring to the dictator...
https://gyazo.com/033773a4c22ac7c8d4ce4cf3817c6985