C-SPAN's Booknote interviews with Cronkite (see sig for 59:28 video)

http://c-span.org/Watch/Media/2009/07/17/HP/R/20027/Walter+Cronkite+Dies+At+Age+92.aspx

More C-SPAN Programs on Cronkite from archives

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=basic_search&sort=date&query=walter+cronkite+

I find the monarchicalism here quite depressing. Walter Cronkite was a Good King; Tim Russert was a Bad King. So what? Thank God, the mainstream media are dying, along with "journalism". He bearded the generals? A righteous person would not stand in the same room with generals.

As for Michael Jackson, he was a sight more interesting than any of the mouthpieces of this established order or that, and that's why what's left of the media went on about him for so long. You might try to figure out why that's so, instead of sniff at it. Here's your first clue: he brought something.

Question for Glenn: Has this always not been true . . . . Thompson & Cronkite were mere exceptions, even for the past?

We still have a few decent good ones around . . .at the NYT & McClatchy. . .sadly, few with the awesome platform that Cronkite had.

It's just human nature to want to not challenge the powerful and (specially when you are in the small minority). Your story about Hunter S Thompson shows a HUGE amount of courage. Way more than Cronkite. If Cronkite had spoken up a few years earlier, when the Vietnam war was still popular, he probably wouldn't be remembered so fondly, and probably been shutout by the Kennedy WH as well

We should set up an award for courage in journalism ( I say we call it the GlennZilla :-)

a handwritten rundown of the CBS nightly news from 4/10/75 on the Wall of my dads office. Walter Cronkite has signed it even Chancellor was the anchorman at that time - but Cronkite had been in the Studio that day and my dad finally met one of his heroes and even shared a Sandwich with him talking about German politics. - "I'm only loved because they don't know what I think"- is written under the frame - and there is a reason why another Salon article opens with that quote of Cronkite -

When my dad as a young German Journalist made a short internship at CBS in New York that's what he learned:

You never tell or show your audience that you are 'partisan'! -

As a Journalist your first and foremost duty is to be objective!! -

You never ever let them know if you are 'right' or 'left' or and THAT's the MAJOR reason why your readers or your audience will trust and believe you!

Do we have the same 'moral' of the tale?!

(blogger pourmecoffee found this video clip, below)
http://twitter.com/pourmecoffee/status/2699391218
http://pourmecoffee.posterous.com/i-regret-that-in-our-attempt-to-establish-som

* * * * *

Here's a video clip of Walter Cronkite in 1996.

It's only 20 seconds long, and that was enough time to say everything that needed to be said:

http://www.newseum.org/news/news.aspx?item=nh_CRON090714_2

“I regret that in our attempt to establish some standards we didn’t make them stick.

We couldn’t find a way to pass them on to another generation.”

- - Walter Cronkite, 1996

__________

Oh, hoorah! I thought I was alone in thinking Russert was a shill. I had quit watching his boring kiss-up show long ago, and was surprised his death engendered all that media attention & all those accolades. And there were all those politicians who went on the teevee & said how they quaked in their boots the mornings they had to face Russert. I thought Russert must have improved while I wasn't watching. Guess not.

Anyway, this was a fine tribute to Cronkite, who at least knew what journalism was, even as he doled out a rather bland version of it most nights.

Very nice article, Glenn! And unfortunately, it will be a message all but missing in the MSM. Even KO's Countdown (perhaps because Olbermann was on vacation, replaced by the less impressive David Shuster) mentioned the moment you praised - of Cronkite opposing the government's propaganda on Vietnam - as a sort of failure: Corporate America's Most Trusted Door-Matt Lauer, in his inimitably bland style, said "And once, in 1968, he dropped his anchorman's objectivity." Later in the same show, Tom Brokaw described him as the "quintessential American" because he was "from the heartland," a sentiment far too stupid to have ever crossed the mind or lips of Cronkite himself.

Still, I have long wished that, in the last couple decades especially, Cronkite would have used his stature to more loudly and regularly decry his failing, flailing profession. But, he seems to have been very proud of the fact that most people never knew his true opinions. This is fine regarding matters of opinion, but not with regard to issues of government policy, secrecy, lying and criminal behavior. As your column so frequently describes, we're in a mess largely because of the fallen state of journalism and reporting, today. I think we could have used more outspoken help from Uncle Walter to counter that.

viva la revolution ! ! !

hee hee hee

(hmmm, is 'revolution' feminine or masculine ?)

ho ho ho

in spite of pee dee ehh's (justifiable) lionization of me (*blush* comparing me with ghandi-gi and emm ell kay and such), i'm just a humble meme-bomb thrower...

ha ha ha

and my memes are blowin' up babbitt brainz ! ! !

ak ak ak

art guerrilla

aka ann archy

eof

Under current network ownership another Cronkite or Murrow will NEVER be found sitting in the anchor chair.

There's NOTHING we can do to change that fact.

What we CAN do is demand reinstatement of a new improved Fairness Doctrine to rip the broadcast licenses from the talons of the media megaliths that own and abuse them.

Then we need to demand that a can of Sherman Anti-trust Act be busted open on their azz breaking these ministries of propaganda into a thousand little pieces.

Little noticed on progressive blogs was that Obama recently nominated and the Senate confirmed Julius Genachowski to head the FCC, a position that's perhaps more powerful than a Supreme Court Justice and Fed Governor combined.

Mr. Genachowski does not support a return of the Fairness Doctrine. Nor do Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat, and Meredith Attwell Baker, a Republican who are certain to be confirmed for two of the four remaining seats.

There's a reason the far-right defends their dominance of the public's airwaves with more venom than any other issue. Controlling information is the most powerful weapon a fascist can wield. Take it away and not only would the Iraq war never have happened but the torturers would've been in jail long ago.

Trying to catch any one of the thousands of Chuck Todd's who infest our media in a 'gotcha moment' is good fun. But if you want more Cronkites and Murrows on the air you're going to have to first remove GE, Disney and Viacom's death grip on their broadcast licenses.

The airwaves belong to the public. That's you and me.

It's way past time to take them back.