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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Whenever a jounalist becomes an editorialist, journalism suffers. Cronkite reporting on Vietnam and the success or failure of any mission is one thing. Cronkite waxing historical and trying to encourage a certain course of action through his monologues is something different.
I don't respect Cronkite. He was a hell of a lot better than what came after, but he caused what came after, first by making his saying something more important that what he said (and yes, he's as resposible for this as his audience because he did nothing to discourage it), and secondly by confusing the issue of telling a newstory with giving an opinion. Ever since, crusading journalists have wanted to "make a difference." Trouble is, humans are flawed, partial, and tend to filter informations through the lenses of their own prejudices. Leading to heavily scewed journalism and no independent source that the nation as a whole will trust.
Bottom line, Walter Cronkite lead to Bill O'Reilly.
You could probably add I.F. Stone to that list, as well.
Great men are fated to have mediocre eulogizers.
And that's the way it is.
RIP WC
...care to comment?
I would think not. Brilliant articulation, Glenn, of the mindlessly sycophantic stenography that now passes as Cronkite-esque journalism.
I note that Walter Cronkite did not do what GG criticizes David Gregory for failing to do. Cronkite did not call anyone a liar. He noted that the optimistic statements of government officials were false and likely to continue to be false. He did not speculate about their motives.
GG is increasingly inclined to smudge the line between saying what is and saying what ought to be. Many reporters (such as Chuck Todd) seek to explain what the government *is* doing, and their motives for doing it -- not to evaluate these actions. You may think (as I do) that Bush should be tried (and executed) for war crimes, and still wonder why Obama is, in fact, resistant to putting Bush on trial. It is perfectly reasonable for a reporter to seek to answer that latter question. He is not obliged to add that he disagrees with Obama's decision.
Someone once said that a good historian should be able to describe the battle of Waterloo in such a way that the reader cannot tell if he is English or French. Same with reporters. As lawyers might say, a statement of the facts should not be couched in conclusory language.
Whenever a jounalist becomes an editorialist, journalism suffers. Cronkite reporting on Vietnam and the success or failure of any mission is one thing. Cronkite waxing historical and trying to encourage a certain course of action through his monologues is something different.
I wasn't praising Cronkite's career as a whole, just this one moment, his most celebrated and significant.
He went to Vietnam and saw that the sunny claims from the government and military were lies and that we weren't winning and weren't likely to win. You think he should have kept that to himself, and just kept telling viewers what U.S. generals were saying without any attempt to determine if it was true?
I note that Walter Cronkite did not do what GG criticizes David Gregory for failing to do. Cronkite did not call anyone a liar. He noted that the optimistic statements of government officials were false and likely to continue to be false. He did not speculate about their motives.
Reporter should point out when government claims are false. Whether they use the word "liar" is completely irrelevant to me. THAT is what jorunalsits failed to do in the run-up to Iraq and what David Gregory explicitly rejected as his role ("I think there are a lot of critics who think that [in the run-up to the Iraq War] . . . . if we did not stand up and say this is bogus and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role").
GG is increasingly inclined to smudge the line between saying what is and saying what ought to be.
There is no evidence that Saddam has WMD or is developing nuclear weapons or works with Al Qaeda or is hiding things from inspectors. The tactics ordered by the Bush administration have always been deemed torture by the Western world. What the Bush administration did in spying on Americans is what the law says you cannot do without committing a felony.
That has nothing to do with "ought" - it is purely about "is."
Many reporters (such as Chuck Todd) seek to explain what the government *is* doing, and their motives for doing it -- not to evaluate these actions. You may think (as I do) that Bush should be tried (and executed) for war crimes, and still wonder why Obama is, in fact, resistant to putting Bush on trial. It is perfectly reasonable for a reporter to seek to answer that latter question. He is not obliged to add that he disagrees with Obama's decision.
Anyone who can read can see that he did the opposite of what you claimed. He argued that there "ought" to be no investigations. He even said that this was his opinion.
Glenn, speaking of how we have devolved from Cronkite's era, have there been any recent developments in the case of NBC's Brian Williams and his refusal to disclose that their "objective" spokespeople are explicitly approved by or paid by the Pentagon?
As a side note, I guess I would give minor credit to Katie Couric (much as it pains me to say that) simply for her Sarah Palin interview last fall. While hardly in the company of Cronkite or Halberstam (or Helen Thomas, for that matter), at least she was willing to press the governor on various matters, which gave Palin the perfect opportunity to show her ignorance and vapidity to the entire country.
We oughta be mad as hell. These frequencies they broadcast on belong to all American citizens. But no one seems to care. And the right wing warnings about restoring the "fairness doctrine" should be the exact thing the "right" needs to be hoping for.
It is the Christian Right, after all, that should be most angry about the media. Not for being liberal, that is a well known lie also, but they should be mad at the media for being PARTIAL period.
After all, the Christian right were blatantly and obviously used by the GoP in their quest for power. With promises of family values, repeal of Roe v Wade and calls for limited government. None of which was even once remotely attempted as they held power for 14 straight years in congress and 12 of the last 20 years in the White house.
it is, and continues to be, the Christian right that, to this day, should be the angriest about the sad state of today's media that you so clearly point out. They were used like a 2 dollar crack whore.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
