All of that was ignored when he died, with establishment media figures exploiting his death to suggest that his greatness reflected well on what they do, as though what he did was the same thing as what they do (much the same way that Martin Luther King's vehement criticisms of the United States generally and its imperialism and aggression specifically have been entirely whitewashed from his hagiography).Greenwald has this way of making me feel like I have to go to confession - forgive me father, for I have not fought for Truth recently. But he does make a good point. Some journalists are exploiting his death, in a way, by saying they are like him. Others, though, merely describe his greatness. The problem is that Cronkite embodies what every journalist should be (which includes me, of course, so I'm not a true journalist).
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Cronkite's best moment was when he did exactly that which the modern journalist today insists they must not ever do -- directly contradict claims from government and military officials and suggest that such claims should not be believed. These days, our leading media outlets won't even use words that are disapproved of by the Government.
Also to consider: this essay.
[Consensus reality] can be a glorious expression of democracy, or it can lead, as it did Saturday morning, to the most e-mailed story on Yahoo! News being the one about the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile crashing into a house in Wisconsin. Democracy has a way of being quite democratic.
It seems that neither method really is entirely effective.
Cronkite's version of the news covered specific items with accuracy, insight and fearlessness, but lacked range (as opposed to today) because of the medium he was working in.
Today's version of the news covers nearly everything, but is too often from a partisan point of view or is misleading or incorrect. Because of the democratization of media, more people (people not even on network television!) like Glenn Greenwald and Amy Goodman can get to the bottom of things. The problem is picking their truth from a field of lies.
So which do you prefer?
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I would personally opt for having news sources that are misleading, but why should the public have to sacrifice quantity for quality? Moreover, In the past month it seems too that reporting of news has been somewhat pushed aside in favor of more "popular" stories that will result in more viewers. The day of Micheal Jackson's memorial service news outlets of a variety of different mediums were taken over by the story. Fark even joked that CNN should change their webpage address to MJNN for the day. So even the increase in the amount of news we get seems debatable.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with a 24-hour news cycle, like CNN has, is that you have to fill it with content. Hence you have massive coverage of "non-stories" (stories that are much less important) like the deaths of Anna Nicole Smith and Michael Jackson. The pushing-aside of real news in favor of stories to boost rankings is nothing new.
ReplyDeleteWhat the news should be is a vehicle for keeping society educated.
We shouldn't have to sacrifice quality for quantity, but it's something that is done in the MSM because they are run by businessmen and women who believe news content is only a vehicle for delivering advertising to the public.