He Thinks Hes Walter Cronkite Again
To many of us infant boomers who had been or are in the news biz, Walter Cronkite, who died yesterday at the age of 92, was a journalistic role model who represented a kind of trustworthy reporting that had been nurtured during Globe War II and blossomed in the early on to mid 60s — one we assumed would thrive and blossom forever. Merely as Cronkite didn't, it didn't. Here are 10 reasons why we will never see another Walter Cronkite:
1. He was selected by journalism broadcast behemothic Edward R. Murrow who revolutionized the broadcast news business organization during World War II and made CBS News the broadcast golden standard. There is no Murrow-similar broadcaster, or mentor, on the scene today.
2. By the time Cronkite was reluctantly removed from the CBS Evening News, CBS' own corporate values inverse and overall network news values had begun to shift. CBS enforced its mandatory retirement age (a ridiculous 65 at the time) to force Cronkite out. But a key reason was that the network'due south ain values had changed at the fourth dimension: past the early 1970s the network was most preoccupied by demographics (it even axed a whole bunch of top-rated variety and rural comedy shows because they appealed to older viewers) and by 1980 it feared losing the (allegedly) demographically more appealing (read "younger"), aggressive and flashier Dan Rather to replace him. They feared Rather would go somewhere else until he got the meridian slot — and Rather's more easygoing rival for the Cronkite spot, Roger Mudd, lost out.
In doing and so CBS fabricated a major long-term error: as the network later painfully learned, in the long run Rather did not fill Cronkite's shoes as anchorman and didn't take Cronkite'south gravitas. Yet, in reality, CBS DID have a dorsum-up Cronkite who they dismissively passed over: Bob Schieffer, the closest thing to a Cronkite clone, a broadcaster with the same tone every bit Cronkite, print groundwork and virtually the same gravitas. (Here'south Schieffer's have on Cronkite.)
3. Cronkite was one of several top reporters of the era who came from the discipline of having had a solid background as a PRINT reporter who put the absolutely highest premium on meticulous, accurate news gathering and the presentation of these facts to news consumers and so they could make important decisions for themselves. The idea wasn't to requite the people their opinion or strengthen one political party and its partisans and undermine another.
Newer broadcast journalists are now less-probable to have a print groundwork and in the future — with the downsizing and virtual plummet of parts of the print media — it will exist even less likely to happen. Present competition betwixt impress news organizations is now far less intense, so that groundwork won't be the same as it was in Cronkite'southward youth. (A journalism prof of mine at Northwestern once argued that I should never join a political party simply remain an independent. He felt working journalists should surrender party affiliations because political views could change and, no matter what, a journalist should remain "overtly" unaffiliated).
4. Today's audience is more diffuse. Cronkite was circulate journalism's king during a day when there were three networks and BROADcasting was as well king. In politics, entertainment and news presentation, we at present live in an era of NARROWcasting that tries to attract parts of a broader polity or audience.
5. Stance-based journalism is clearly booming while fact-based journalism is under attack and waning. American'southward political civilization is at present greatly dominated by the talk radio political culture. Most news organizations that once had foreign or domestic bureaus accept cutting back or eliminated them, some local papers barely compete anymore and TV evening newscasts and local newspapers are just one (increasingly less significant) chemical element of a larger media picture. Wire services that once relied on a healthy newspaper business to fund their operations now run across newspaper organization clients dying, ailing or buried. Some at present say opinion-based journalism always has a viewpoint backside it, and then information technology's hypocritical, and so why bother? That exclamation is in itself symptomatic of today'southward mind-set.
6. The media of Cronkite's heyday was competing largely against other mainstream media but in recent decades it has had to have on on contest from tabloids, talk radio and now the Internet. By the 1980s, news media had to take on refurbished tabloids that had dumped the old "DOG EATS Domestic dog TO STAY Alive!" headlines to become readers by going after more than mainstream celebrity and political scandals. And so came CNN, which instituted a 24 hr never-ending news cycle. Then came Flim-flam News which transplanted a politically-slated talk radio show model onto news in a network that argued that mainstream media had certain unadmitted assumptions (Autonomous) behind its reporting so it instituted its own wearing-information technology-on-its-sleeve assumptions (conservative Republican).
seven. The audience greatly inverse. Many in Cronkite's audition were of The Greatest Generation and their parents, individuals who experienced the depression and World War Ii and who took substantive political issues and the demand to know about them equally a duty of citizenship very seriously. Being "flip" and not taking news seriously was both unseemly and professional person to them. Today's newspapers have flopped in their (weak and at times laughable) attempts to attract younger readers. The younger audience prefers to have an interactive vocalism now and tin can through You lot Tube, Twitter, news website comments and weblog comments. They don't want news from an "uncle"; they want to talk and contend about it with "family" members of the same status.
8. The declining audience and diffuse nature of news media has spawned a group of Americans who brag about not bothering to become news from news sources. At that place are people who proudly say they get all of their information from talk radio and news weblogs. As someone who owns a news weblog and is a blog addict I volition flatly say: that is a TRULY scary thought.
Some bloggers nail the mainstream news media — while all the while linking to it and quoting it on weblogs that could not draw readers if these websites could non link to and paste and discuss piece of work and reporting of the salaried mainstream reporters and editors that they so disdain. Most weblogs do not do anything resembling reporting: most (but not all) are today extended op-ed pages, often running some posts that would never be considered for a print op-ed page. Moreover, the fact-checking that news organizations do before impress or circulate pieces are released doesn't happen on blogs (including this: we don't cheque each sentence we paste from mainstream media reports we — just as bloggers who blast the news media do when they run these same reports — assume these reports are correct which is our fashion of proverb nosotros and others pasting these excerpts presume they are produced by professional news gatherers). Talk radio hosts cherry-red-selection, insist they don't cherry choice, often make flat-out assertions that are inaccurate or (left or right) propaganda, and or set up "discussions" consisting of a liberal, a conservative and maybe someone in the middle — all picked to reflect a predetermined viewpoint and to nowadays a loud, confrontational, emotion-eliciting partisan spin.
Some readers and viewers will absolutely non visit a news site, read a publication or watch a TV show unless they already agree with it in advance.
To many, news-consuming has now shifted from a thirst for getting more information to a demand to see a reaffirmation of existing beliefs.
9. News resource are being curtailment beyond the board equally the Internet continues to modify the context of news. The cutbacks will probable injure investigative reporting and reporting. Newsweek recently revamped its mag into a highly-appealing and accessible weekly (I am a very happy subscriber) that places a premium on reporting and discussion of key issues and offering more stance and analysis. But here, again: the meticulous reporting of events is what by necessity is being edged out. The idea of a newsweekly that arrives in one case a calendar week after virtually people have already watched the news and discussion of it on cable or gone online and read a zillion weblog posts or analyses may not exist a good business model. So Newsweek is assuming well-nigh readers take read a lot of that already and is getting correct down to the journalistic nitty gritty. Which is more on solid, compelling analysis, recollect pieces and enterprise reporting — not the by-the-seat-of-your-pants reporting Cronkite and many reporters of his era did. The number of people working on past-the-seat-of-your-pants solid reporting is in sharp reject and the numbers will likely go downwardly.
10. Cronkite's heyday wasn't during an era when many considered insults, demonization and discrediting as a sign of intelligence. The 50s-60s had its moments (McCarthyism), but if most viewers watched Cronkite and didn't like a report, they wouldn't dismiss him as a liberal, a tool of JFK, someone out to impose his agenda on America. They recognized that he was a news professional person who was like a medico performing an functioning: the physician doesn't not operate on someone because he doesn't like them or their views, he seriously gets downward to doing his task. Similarly, Cronkite and news professionals of that era had readerships and viewerships that accustomed that journalists would cover news professionally, gathering facts from each side, and trying to package it in a balanced way.
In recent years, it has become in the interest of some to ignominy those who report stories with which they disagree or don't like to come across in print or on tv set. Today, the beginning instinct by some partisan and news consumers is to go later the reporter/broadcaster if a report doesn't bolster their political agenda or biases.
The popularity of talk radio — where people listen to a host that has become their radio friend for three hours a day do nothing but assault and demonize one political party or anyone who might share that party'south views and then do virtual public relations for their own Republican or Autonomous party — has helped shift this context. No one would ever have imagined when Cronkite ruled the airwaves that Americans could always tune in by the millions for three hours a mean solar day to listen to demonization of one political party every bit a course of entertainment and as a valid news source.
Information technology was notable yesterday that, while I was stuck in traffic, some conservative talkers were honoring Cronkite for a few things but diggings his "liberal bias" over the years. 1 suggested Cronkite basically pulled the wool over America'south optics for years and was pushing an agenda and applauded today's new era where this kind of hypocritical reporting is seen for what it is.
Cronkite passed from the scene — but the heyday of the fact-based journalist and the mass audience that favored and steadfastly demanded fact-based journalism and looked a flake down on opinion-based journalism was over some time agone.
Drawing by David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star. This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
UPDATE: Ii final thoughts:
1. All of the networks including Play a joke on accept some solid reporters and anchors, but none of them have Cronkite's authority.
ii. As noted to a higher place, Schieffer is from the same school and would take been a smoother transition from Cronkite than Rather was. The only other journalist on the scene who came shut to where Cronkite was was someone who didn't live long enough to realize his total, quickly-blossoming potential: NBC's belatedly and missed Tim Russert. Russert wore several hats and came from a political background, but his fame and well-deserved brownie didn't stem from hard news reporting, as Cronkite'due south originally did.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He as well did radio reports from Madrid for NPR'south All Things Considered. He has worked on 2 U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into amusement. He too has written for The Week and several online publications, did a cavalcade for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.
fullerposinion2001.blogspot.com
Source: https://themoderatevoice.com/10-reasons-why-we-will-never-see-another-walter-cronkite-again/
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