What we really should be looking at since the death of Walter Cronkite

Uncle Walter passed away on Friday and so this weekend the press corp have been celebrating the anchorman who set the standard of what the press is suppose to be. It is ironic that as they celebrate the icon of TV news, current TV news is nothing like what Cronkite stood for or broadcast back in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

The current members of the press commented on objective and tough Cronkite was in his reporting. He told us all what we needed to hear and sometimes what we didn’t want to hear. That doesn’t happen today.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com says it better:

Despite that, media stars will spend ample time flamboyantly commemorating Cronkite’s death as though he reflects well on what they do (though probably not nearly as much time as they spent dwelling on the death of Tim Russert, whose sycophantic servitude to Beltway power and “accommodating head waiter”-like, mindless stenography did indeed represent quite accurately what today’s media stars actually do). In fact, within Cronkite’s most important moments one finds the essence of journalism that today’s modern media stars not only fail to exhibit, but explicitly disclaim as their responsibility.

Celebrating Cronkite while ignoring what he did 

Too bad it is all true.