Glenn Greenwald takes the occasion to point out that the journalistic world is celebrating one of its own -- in words of praise -- but that they do not honor him by emulation. The comparison with the journalistic giants of yesteryear, Cronkite being one of the best, should shame today's news-readers whose job seems to begin and end with finding opposing quotes so as to present both sides of a story.
Whatever happened to the idea that the journalist's job is to ferret out the truth, to call out those who are distorting it or misusing their public offices and betraying the public trust?
I would go so far as to say that we hardly have a functioning fourth estate now, at least if you look at print and tv news. The internet is the hope of the future, I think, because -- although there is a lot of junk and misinformation -- there are also some really sharp investigative reportors who dig out the facts and present them without being beholden to moneyed or powered interests.
Greenwald contrasts these two quotes to show what he means:
"For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. . . . To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past" -- Walter Cronkite, CBS Evening News, February 27, 1968.Greenwald says that
"I think there are a lot of critics who think that [in the run-up to the Iraq War] . . . . if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role" -- David Gregory, MSNBC, May 28, 2008.
perhaps Cronkite's most celebrated and significant moment was when he stood up and announced that Americans shouldn't trust the statements being made about the war by the U.S. Government and military, and that the specific claims they were making were almost certainly false.There you have it. A democracy cannot function without an informed public. These days one has to work hard to be informed, and those less diligent will be filled with the misinformation that is tailored to sell advertising space and curry favor with those in power.
Ralph
Ugh !!! Above mentioned David Gregory, host of Meet the Press, in courting Mark Sanford to appear on the show, wrote to Sandford's spokesman:
ReplyDelete"Coming on Meet the Press allows you to frame the conversation as you really want to."
Yes, exactly. That's my beef with the state of what passes for journalism today. I have no desire to see Sanford raked over the coals. In fact, I wish he'd just go into hiding and keep his messy life private.
But if you're going to have controversial people on the Sunday morning talk shows, let's have an open and honest discussion, instead of just a forum to tell their story without challenge.