And That's The Way It Was

I am reading today that Walter Cronkite is very ill, and taking a turn for the worst with whatever ails him. There were no details released. He is 92.

Like millions, I grew up with Walter Cronkite's CBS evening news. The guy was an icon for sure. I became so much more learned on important topics like politics, the space program and the Vietnam war by listening to his reports. I know that there were many others writing about or broadcasting about these things, but Cronkite is who I recall listening to. Whether it was the regular evening news, or one of his "special reports", he made a bigger impression on me I think, than anyone else on television. Or in any media.

That makes me pause and think.

In light of how the major TV media does things today, I wonder now Cronkite handled "the facts"? Was he different? What about Huntley /Brinkley? Were the major networks different back then? Did they actually report the news, without interjecting their own (liberal) bias on almost every story? I remember Walter's somber tone when he displayed the "scoreboard" of U.S. and "allied" soldiers versus the Vietcong killed in action that day. I don't remember any commentary about it. It wouldn't happen that way today, would it?

I remember Cronkite's sign off, "And that's the way it is." But was it really? Damn, I'd like to think so. But there was no Internet. And I rarely read a newspaper when the television could bring the news to us in a much more exciting medium, at least for a kid. We were the TV generation after all, so I certainly believed everything I heard there. That is a bit scary isn't it, again thinking about today's broadcast news.

Today of course, we have the Internet. It is both a blessing and a curse. Lots of different views, that's for sure. Lots of inaccuracies too. Extremely tough to sort it all out. Tougher for a 12 year-old today, than when I watched Walter.

If he had been the grandfather of all libs, like those running the major broadcasts today, then he didn't influence me very much! So either he was a somewhat conservative guy, which I seriously doubt, or he was just a plain, old ordinary newsman, and what I got, what we got, was just the news. Imagine that. That's what I'd like to believe. That's what we need today.