Showing posts with label Walter Cronkite. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Walter Cronkite. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Live Streaming Video- Memorial service for Walter Cronkite, including speech by President Obama
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
1971 VIDEO: Ted Kennedy Fighting For Health Care Reform... & Slamming Insurance Industry
By GottaLaff
Let's hope we don't have to eulogize the public option. My tears keep flowing today, sometimes because of my sorrow over Ted Kennedy's death, and other times due to my frustration over the death of civility in politics:
In 1971, President Nixon proposed a national health insurance plan built on heavily employer private coverage. Senator Ted Kennedy proposed what would today be called a single-payer plan. In 1974, the debate had morphed into Nixon vs. Kennedy-Mills vs. Organized labor. Despite the prediction in the second clip shown, the result was stalemate rather than passage in 1974 or 1975.
Ted Kennedy has been fighting for health care reform for a very, very, very long time. A friend unearths some video of Kennedy arguing for a national health insurance system way back in 1971 — and slamming Richard Nixon’s just-introduced health care plan as a giveaway to the insurance companies.
As an added bonus, Kennedy is introduced by none other than Walter Cronkite, who also passed away recently, underscoring the degree to which an era has drawn to a close.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Frank Rich: And That’s Not the Way It Is
By GottaLaff
What matters about Cronkite is that he knew when to stop being reassuring Uncle Walter and to challenge those who betrayed his audience’s trust. He had the guts to confront not only those in power but his own bosses. Given the American press’s catastrophe of our own day — its failure to unmask and often even to question the White House propaganda campaign that plunged us into Iraq — these attributes are as timely as ever.
That’s why the past week’s debate about whether there could ever again be a father-figure anchor with Cronkite’s everyman looks and sonorous delivery is an escapist parlor game. What matters is content, not style. The real question is this: How many of those with similarly exalted perches in the news media today — and those perches, however diminished, still do exist in the multichannel digital age — will speak truth to power when the country is on the line? This journalistic responsibility cannot be outsourced to Comedy Central and Jon Stewart. [...]
The real test is how a journalist responds when people in high places are doing low deeds out of camera view and getting away with it. Vietnam and Watergate, not Kennedy and Neil Armstrong, are what made Cronkite Cronkite. [...]
To appreciate how special Cronkite’s achievements were, consider our recent past. As the Bush administration hyped Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent W.M.D. and nonexistent link to 9/11, The Times and The Post too often enabled the fictions. But at least some reporters at these papers and others elsewhere were on to the hoax — even if their findings were buried in the back pages. At the networks, Cronkite’s heirs were not even practicing journalism. They invited administration propagandists to trumpet their tales of imminent mushroom clouds with impunity. [...]
The bigger problem is the persistence of that clubby culture Halberstam described, no matter which party is in power. The hagiography that greeted McNamara’s arrival in Washington was also showered initially on some of the best and the brightest in the Bush and Obama administrations. Some journalists even fawn over the worst and the stupidest. As e-mail released by Mark Sanford’s office revealed, David Gregory of NBC News tried to get an interview with the sleazy governor by reassuring him that “‘Meet the Press’ allows you to frame the conversation how you really want to.”
Watching many of the empty Cronkite tributes in his own medium over the past week, you had to wonder if his industry was sticking to mawkish clichés just to avoid unflattering comparisons. If he was the most trusted man in America, it wasn’t because he was a nice guy with an authoritative voice and a lived-in face. It wasn’t because he “loved a good story” or that he removed his glasses when a president died. It was because at a time of epic corruption in the most powerful precincts in Washington, Cronkite was not at the salons and not in the tank.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Walter Cronkite: Networks "just seem to do headlines, & the less important it seems the more likely they are to get on the air."
By GottaLaff
The Nation's John Nichols reports that as the war in Iraq went horribly awry, he asked Cronkite whether a network anchorman would speak out in the same way that he had. "I think it could happen, yes. I don't think it's likely to happen," he said with an audible sigh. "I think the three networks are still hewing pretty much to that theory. They don't even do analysis anymore, which I think is a shame. They don't even do background. They just seem to do headlines, and the less important it seems the more likely they are to get on the air."Sigh.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
"Will there ever be another Walter Cronkite?": A rant
By GottaLaff
No. There won't. There was only one. But let's get past that part and on to the ramifications of the Big Question that these news models feel compelled to ask.
Will there ever be another Cronkite? EVER? Unless there was a secret cloning, then no. But time doesn't stop in the year 2009. Time marches on. There is this thing called "the future". Babies are born, the sun keeps rising and setting, days and nights continue their cycle.
And so, there will be another exceptional news person who will be revered... one day. Because that's the way it is, to borrow from the exceptional news person who gave us that phrase.
The question is, how can that happen with the state of news at it is? When "Uncle Walter" was the go-to news guy, there were only three networks. The news cycle was certainly longer than 24 hours. But most importantly, the news was not yet commercialized.
Today we have sensationalism, not news. We have propaganda, not news. We have salesmanship and performances, not news... with very few exceptions.
Ever listen to the delivery of our news models? They all seem to have gone to the same classes at News Acting for Dummeez U. The cookie-cutter style of most news personalities on the Tee Vee Machine is filled with flourishes, dramatic.... .... ..... pauses, and studied emotional readings, peppered with "off the cuff" giggles and/or Furrowed Brow, Grim-Faced Seriousness.
Walter Cronkite was dedicated, genuine, and therefore, believable. That's why he was referred to as "the most trusted man in America".
Today's news models are deliberately and self-consciously earnest... when they think it's called-for. They're upbeat and cheery when they believe it's appropriate. I don't trust them, nor do I trust their employers. I don't appreciate the news being sold to me. I just want it told to me.
I'll end my rant with Walter Cronkite's own words. He said the role of journalism is not to tell Americans what they want to hear but what they need to know as citizens -- because, he said, "journalism is what we need to make democracy work."
Amen.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Statement from President Obama on the passing of Walter Cronkite
By GottaLaff
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEAnd sadly, that's the way it is.
July 17, 2009
STATEMENT FROM THE PRESIDENT ON THE PASSING OF WALTER CRONKITE
For decades, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted voice in America. His rich baritone reached millions of living rooms every night, and in an industry of icons, Walter set the standard by which all others have been judged.
He was there through wars and riots, marches and milestones, calmly telling us what we needed to know. And through it all, he never lost the integrity he gained growing up in the heartland.
But Walter was always more than just an anchor. He was someone we could trust to guide us through the most important issues of the day; a voice of certainty in an uncertain world. He was family. He invited us to believe in him, and he never let us down. This country has lost an icon and a dear friend, and he will be truly missed.
Walter Cronkite has died
By GottaLaff
Breaking NewsBroadcast Journalist Walter Cronkite Has Died at Age 92, According to His Family
Mr. Cronkite anchored the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981, at a time when television became the dominant medium of the United States. He figuratively held the hand of the American public during the civil rights movement, the space race, the Vietnam war, and the impeachment of Richard Nixon. During his tenure, network newscasts were expanded to 30 minutes from 15.
In a review of Mr. Cronkite’s autobiography in 1997, the former New York Times columnist Tom Wicker wrote:
For his exhaustive and enthusiastic coverage of NASA, Mr. Cronkite was sometimes called “the eighth astronaut.” During the first moon landing in 1969, Mr. Cronkite “was on the air for 27 of the 30 hours that Apollo 11 took to complete its mission,” The Museum of Broadcast Communications notes.When John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas in 1963, Walter Cronkite stayed on the air for the Columbia Broadcasting System for countless hours. His performance that weekend helped pull together a nation stricken with grief and was a signal event in television’s evolution into the national nervous system.
When Mr. Cronkite came back from Vietnam after the Tet offensive of 1968, he concluded on national television that the war had become no better than a stalemate. Hearing that, President Lyndon Johnson told associates, ”If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” And he had. When Mr. Cronkite asked Robert Kennedy, then a senator from New York, whether he would run for President in 1968, Kennedy turned the tables: he proposed that Mr. Cronkite should run for the Senate. Mr. Cronkite refused, but the idea reflected polls showing that a journalist — a television journalist at that — had become the most trusted man in America.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Statement from Walter Cronkite's Family
By GottaLaff
Following last week's reports about the health of legendary CBS Newsman Walter Cronkite, the Cronkite family sent us the following statement. Chip Cronkite, Walter Cronkite's son, tells us he and his sisters wanted to set the record straight about their father's health.
"In order to dispel false rumors, Walter Cronkite's family wants it known that he has apparently suffered for some years with cerebrovascular disease and he is not expected to recuperate. He is resting comfortably at home with family, friends, and a wonderful medical team. We thank you for your prayers and good wishes."
Friday, June 19, 2009
Walter Cronkite Gravely Ill
One of a kind. Via Taegan-
TVNewser has learned legendary CBS newsman Walter Cronkite, 92, who once held the title of "Most Trusted Man in America," is gravely ill, according to multiple CBS News sources. The network began updating his obituary more than a week ago, a source adds.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Today's America would disappoint founding fathers
By GottaLaff
I was lamenting the state of our "news" media, and as an extension, the state of our country. As I witness the disintegration of the quality of journalism, and how non-news stories are endlessly looped and forced down the throats of gullible viewers, I am reminded of how things used to be.
Would Walter Cronkite froth over an Obama campaign nuance? Would David Brinkley rabidly salivate over an uncorroborated, biased mantra? Would Chet Huntley engage in undignified distortions? Journalistic Swiftboating didn't exist. It would have been unthinkable. Maybe I'm romanticizing, and I'm sure there had to have been exceptions, but my perception is that there was a gravitas and a reverence for facts that have since been replaced by a cacophony of memes and a servility to shout fests. The depths into which TV news has devolved is not only repugnant, but unconscionable.
As Americans celebrate the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, an overwhelming majority say the 56 signers of that document would be displeased at how the country has turned out.George Bush is to governing what Rick Sanchez is to newscasting. Let's hope that, by the next Fourth of July, we once again have the Walter Cronkite of presidents, and that the polls reflect a prouder America.According to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, close to 70 percent say that if the signers of the Declaration of Independence could see America today they would be disappointed, while just under 30 percent say the founding founders would be happy with the country 232 years later.
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