Friday, July 17, 2009
"...And that's the way it is:"
There have been some huge celebrity deaths this year but I think this one ranks right up there with the biggest of them. I'm not sure anyone besides Edward R. Murrow had more of an influence on television news. Certainly no one was more genuine or respected. And with his passing at 92, all the real titans of broadcast news are gone. People like Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw can still be looked to as important figures but in their day, boradcasters like Kronkite, David Brinkley, and John Chancellor (and to a lesser degree, Peter Jennings) were voices of authority. Passionate yet unbiased... I miss the days when anchors delivered the news instead on offering unsolicited opinions after each piece. Cable news has pretty much ruined authentic news in my opinion. It's certainly nice to have it on demand but it's usually the dregs of what really needs to be talked about: an orgy of over information about largely meaningless stories. Back in the day (although it was before my time) anchors like Kronkite were turned to and became part of the news because when they spoke the words it was almost always the first any American had heard the story. From the Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, to the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and the Watergate scandal, all the biggest news stories of the 60s and 70s include Kronkite witnessing and reporting on them. I certainly respect what he meant to so many people; quite a life to have lived and a contribution to the history of our country.
