It was sad to hear of Walter Cronkite's passing. For those of my generation that lived away from the media centers of New York and the West Coast, the fly-over country, he was the source of most of our world and national news. Sure we had the local paper and local tv news, but for the stories of the day on a National or Global level, it was Cronkite's 30 minute news each weeknight that we turned to. And in those more innocent, less jaded, complicated, conspiratorial times, we took what he said as gospel. If he said it, we trusted and depended on it being true, checked out and not subjected to the spin of the day. Hell, we didn't even know spin existed. I'm sure it did, but I had never heard about it or have ever thought that Cronkite allowed himself to be manipulated by anyone, be it politician or business mogul.
We certainly don't hold the current crop of newscasters, from CNN to Fox News, to what's left of the Big Three's evening newscasts, in that high regard. (Does anyone even watch the Big 3 anymore? I can't remember the last time I watched one of them, certainly not since Dan Rather exposed his agenda with his attempt to take down Bush).
I don't trust any of them and question everything that's said by them. Even if I agree with them.
It's a shame, a real shame that our news world has dissolved into a mass of self-serving talking heads with hidden agendas, being manipulated like puppets by the PowersThatBe.
Will there ever be another Walter Cronkite?
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