RIP, Walter Cronkite

[pyat]

Walter Cronkite (who has just died, aged 92) and Charles Kuralt (who died in 1997) were the first television personalities I could name who weren't on Sesame Street or Star Trek. You don't seem to get news anchors like them anymore, at least not on U.S. news.

You get blustering demagogues like Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck, or empty suits with good hair who argue with newsroom staff about whether a 2nd plane just hit the World Trade Centre.

(No, I don't like Keith Olbermann, even if I usually agree with him.)

Comments

[relee.livejournal.com]

I saw an interesting documentary? on modern news anchors and weatherpeople/meteorologists. The news anchor has been gradually overshadowed by the growing prestige of the weather reporter. Instead of cute girls with smiling suns and cartoon clouds, you get a bold man or woman in a fine suit, whose job is less telling you about weather trends and more about what new weather disasters to watch out for, and how they are the fault of the viewers.

Really facinating.

Olbermann

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

I want to like him because he saved my sanity during the dark eons of the Reign of Dubya (before Rachel Maddow got her own show), but...

1. I'm sick of his personal feuds with other newsies. If Keith wants me to take him seriously, he'll shut up about Ailes and Limbaugh

2. His silly segments. Boring.

3. His willingness just these past six months or so to slice-and-dice remarks from people he dislikes, even if this means changing their context. I really don't like that. That's a right-wing trick and ought to be beneath him.

He needs to cut the shrill. This week, Hardball with Chris Matthews changed its look and feel (and mostly sound) to get rid of the gaudier, brassier theme music and splash screens. It makes Chris seem a much more serious newsman. Olbermann ought do the same.

I'm lovin' on Rachel Maddow, though it irritates me when she tries to be nice to that foul pig, Pat Buchanan.

Re: Olbermann

[kianir.livejournal.com]

Maddow laid the smack down on Buchanan just a few days ago, if that.

I generally agree about Olbermann. I have to say I was infatuated with him at the beginning for much the same reasons; he was a lone voice of sanity, sometimes raising his voice about things that many, many more people should have been shouting about.

He has, to an extent, lost his way. Much more time spent on fluff pieces and petty sniping than I seem to recall from before. He's still got the advantage of format over most of his peers, since it's by no means a shouting heads show. cf. The Ed Show, which is nominally a liberal talk show, and always, always devolves into a four-plus-way shouting match.

Anyway, we have Maddow; she's a first-rate commentator.

And we still have real journalists, just not on network TV. Bill Moyers, Amy Goodman, Dan Rather.

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

The difference is that he came from a time when Newsmen reported the news, and doing so honestly and directly was considered to be a matter of honor.

Now, news is a matter of ratings, and sensationalism is valued more than getting the facts straight. What's more, news organizations have started aligning themselves with politics, putting a spin on what's reported.

Cronkite was part of a dying breed. He'll be missed.

And that's the way it is.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

The really depressing thing about THAT is that it wasn't a steady downhill progression from a Golden Age. That time of honest, honorable news was a few brief decades between the end of the Depression and the middle of the '80s.

The days of the Hearsts and Yellow Journalism aren't that far removed from today's cable tabloid networks.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

I used to watch Cronkite on You Are There as a kid. He would cover historical events as though they were news stories. I loved it.

I know he was getting on, but very sad to hear of his passing. It's like the end of an era in responsible journalism.