As i watch the outpouring of commentary and reminensces of the life and times of Walter Cronkite, some things come to mind.

1. he was called the "most trusted man in America". I wonder who is now? Is anybody? He goes back to a time when we trusted our newspeople to bring us the news, unbiased and uncut. That is long gone, in this era of partisan news agencies and newspeople. I am sure WC had his beliefs, but he didn't let them seep into his reporting like today. For example, how many of you saw the confrontation between the president of the National Black Chamber of commerce and Senator Boxer, in which he accused her of rasism? if you saw it, was it on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN? If so, i am shocked, just as it should be no surprise it got play on Fox. The question is, should it have been on all the outlets, or none? In an unbiased newsworld, it should be all or none.

2. I was struck by the reversal of now and 40 years ago. Then, as now, there was a lot of opposition to a foreign war, someplace we "had no business being", just the parties were reversed. Then, as now, a president gave us tax cuts which the other side derided, just that the parties were reversed. Maybe it doesn't matter what side you are on, just as long as you are against those on the other side.

3. The space program was often criticized for spending lots of money that "could better be spent" doing other things the speaker preferred, just like is said now of the cost of the War in Iraq. We did cut back, stopped moon missions, etc. I wonder what the savings for used for? To end hunger in the US? To finance an end to poverty? No, of course not. maybe in the 80'sit helped fuel the Cold War and helped bring about its end. maybe it helped reduce the budget deficit in the in the 90's. Maybe it helped finace the War on Terror in the 00's. Maybe not. It is nearly always impossible to pinpoint where savings go.

Well, y'all can comment, or not, as you please. Y'all can add other topics, as you please. Or not. I had a few things on my mind, I said them.

Just a quick follow-up on points 1b & 3 -

I saw an interview with Harry Alford, the President of the National Black Chamber of Commerce regarding his dust-up with Senator Boxer. He said of her, "she likes black people in their place". Interesting that this confrontation got so little play.

The dust-up came because he was opposing the Cap and Trade bill. he said that the NBCC had commisioned a study with a reputable firm that showed that C&T would result in a net loss of 2.3 million jobs. She was trying to tell him the NAACP was in favor of it.

Also, saw a discussion on whether America should get back into space, with a program to reach the Moon/asteroids/Mars/beyond. The arguement centered around what do we get for our money? My thought was, what does it matter? We just passed a stimulus bill in which the main concept is that spending brings about economic growth, so why not use that spending on space exploration? Money spent is money spent. And this would at least create jobs that pay much better than $10.50/hour and would last longer than six months. Another point was that this program would keep the US on the leading edge of technological advance. Since we are rapidly losing our position as an exporter of manufactured goods, maybe we can become an exporter of technology.

No comments on the bulk of this conversation other than to say I lived in a house in Houston that was Walter Cronkite's boyhood home. It was on Marshall, not far from the intersection of West Alabama and Shepherd I think?

I think the 20th Century will be considered the Golden Age of news reporting. Then, you could have news outlets that reporting the news instead of being the news. Now like the 19th century, we are faced with having a lot of partisan sources of news. The difference now is that we have the internet instead of newspapers.

(07-19-2009 12:45 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  As i watch the outpouring of commentary and reminensces of the life and times of Walter Cronkite, some things come to mind.

1. he was called the "most trusted man in America". I wonder who is now? Is anybody? He goes back to a time when we trusted our newspeople to bring us the news, unbiased and uncut. That is long gone, in this era of partisan news agencies and newspeople. I am sure WC had his beliefs, but he didn't let them seep into his reporting like today. For example, how many of you saw the confrontation between the president of the National Black Chamber of commerce and Senator Boxer, in which he accused her of rasism? if you saw it, was it on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN? If so, i am shocked, just as it should be no surprise it got play on Fox. The question is, should it have been on all the outlets, or none? In an unbiased newsworld, it should be all or none.

2. I was struck by the reversal of now and 40 years ago. Then, as now, there was a lot of opposition to a foreign war, someplace we "had no business being", just the parties were reversed. Then, as now, a president gave us tax cuts which the other side derided, just that the parties were reversed. Maybe it doesn't matter what side you are on, just as long as you are against those on the other side.

3. The space program was often criticized for spending lots of money that "could better be spent" doing other things the speaker preferred, just like is said now of the cost of the War in Iraq. We did cut back, stopped moon missions, etc. I wonder what the savings for used for? To end hunger in the US? To finance an end to poverty? No, of course not. maybe in the 80'sit helped fuel the Cold War and helped bring about its end. maybe it helped reduce the budget deficit in the in the 90's. Maybe it helped finace the War on Terror in the 00's. Maybe not. It is nearly always impossible to pinpoint where savings go.

Well, y'all can comment, or not, as you please. Y'all can add other topics, as you please. Or not. I had a few things on my mind, I said them.

The "trivialization" of the news is the biggest problem, even more than sensationalism or outright bias. When we have a populace that cares more about what celebrity is diddling who, or whether Obama was checking out some woman's behind, than they do about healthcare reform, we have a populace that is practically no factor in that debate. The fact that there has been an upswing in political assassinations in Russia is not even on their radar.

I have long, long wished for someone to come out with the "thinking (wo)man's news" which would NOT discuss celebrities, upcoming movies, tv shows, musicians or other stuff that should only matter to THOSE people. Someone gave birth to triplets? great, not news. David Beckham's getting a divorce? sucks, but NOT interesting.

In it's place, I would like a dedicated segment to the top scientific publications that week. The only time you see science in the news is when they can spin it into some horrifying byline "Giant Cloud of mysterious matter may consume the earth!" was an actual rendering I saw about a recent paper on dark matter.

This is talking national news. I don't care if local news is hard up for a story and does fluff pieces on local people. Whatever. I wish they would stop doing hysteria-inducing pieces on "PREDATORS IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD" and other such nonsense, though.

I realize that your greatest problem is that most of the population would rather hear about celebrities than ethnic cleansings, and likes being needlessly scared of their own neighborhoods, but I have this hope that there would be enough of a "market" to at least get, maybe, one channel for the people who want intelligent news?