Posted by
Bill Crawford on Friday, July 24, 2009 1:53:15 AM
Walter Cronkite died last week- the last of the Edward Murrow generation of journalists who were born before radio started and matured electronic news reporting, first in radio and then television. By the time Cronkite retired, the television networks were at their high water mark and cable was starting to encroach on their territory.
Walter lived through all the great cycles of the twentieth century. He started during the Depression, was a war theater newsman in World War II, solidified his career in the Fifties and was the most influential man on television by the time we landed on the Moon.
That was the great dichotomy of Cronkite: he was a remarkable cheerleader for the space program and he turned Murrow’s objective observer paradigm on it’s head when he announced in March of 1968 that we were being lied to by our government regarding Vietnam.
That single act turned journalism from ‘reporting the news’ to ‘changing the world’, and his antecedents took it to where we are today. The joke of it all is that all the old news divisions (commonly referred to as the mainstream media) still hold the Murrow objectivity as their M.O.
He was a grand man, though, and his work as a Managing Editor was the standard of excellence for a long time. I don’t know if he realized what a monster he created. The example was certainly clear for him to see by the time he died.