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Saturday, July 18, 2009 12:00 AM

Trusting Walter Cronkite

We know no one else will ever be able to say "And that's the way it is." Can anyone emulate his truth-telling?

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  • Friday, July 17, 2009 11:26 PM

    A different America

    There are really two questions here. One is whether there will be people reporting the news who have not been airbrushed and focus-grouped to project a lowest-common-denominator happy medium view of the world. I think are and will continue to be real people in the news business with real concern for ethics and professionalism, despite what the mainstream news has come to be.

    But the other question is whether there will ever again be one place where all of America watches to learn what's happened in a day. Cronkite was the definitive last word, because he was such a compelling personality, but also because so much of America watched what he had to say that his opinion (conveyed often only through his expression) was a common and unifying experience for Americans.

    That's what I don't expect to experience again. We are unlikely ever again to have a single place or person we all turn to each day to learn about and interpret what happened. There are too many places to turn to, and too many seek out the news they agree with, not the reporters they trust. I have to admit I think it's a loss not to have a few touchstones that most Americans witness in common, or opinion leaders we trust because we know their ethics and professionalism is untarnished.

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