Carolyn
I agree with you, Carolyn. Heh....for once a Lib gets it right.
Hannity has even said that many of these folks who don't know (or care) about events around them are "cancelling out" our vote at the polls each year. (He proves it every Thursday with his 'Man on the Street' interviews)
I agree. Look how many voted for Gore and then 4 years later voted for Kerry. Don't know how many times I have heard "I vote Democrat because my father always voted Democrat." Keeps them from having to think. I don't remember any ever saying "I vote Republican because my father did."
I agree with you, and this obviously goes back a long ways. Ironically, if Americans of prior generations had been half as smart as Cronkite wishes them to be now, he would have been unemployed.
Uh, Cronkite is talking about YOU, not the people who parrot the MSM!
The lying old fellow traveller lied about Tet and Vietnam generally.
That's why the MSM is so much against blogs like this one. They want to go back to the days where EVERYONE in the country knew only the left leaning Democratic loving MSM wanted them to know!
It would be conservative suicide if we let them put any constraints on the internet as Hillary wanted to do about 7 years ago. http://www.drudgereport.com/flash4.htm
He's right but not for the reasons he thinks he is. I'm certain he is saying this because Bush won the election. However, there is no doubt there is a serious lack of basic civics knowledge among the public in this country.
They just parrot what the MSM tells them. Sad.
So purely arrogant of you.
Why do so many Democrat run inner city school systems fail? The Cronkite element of the party do not really care at all about the "education" because they want to keep them uneducated and uninformed to vote Democrat. The churches in the cities should wake up and demand better schools from these Democrat con artists before they allow them one more campaign session in the minority churches.
I know exactly what you mean. I agree with him for different reasons as well.
Cronkite said journalists need to find a way to better inform the public, suggesting they pressure their employers to replace the current roundups of celebrity profiles and personal health and finance pieces with "the news of the day."I hate to be in a position of agreement with Cronkite, but he's right in this instance. Where I work we have 70 employees. Only three, including myself, have a clue what's going on politically. The rest don't know and don't care. They just parrot what the MSM tells them. Sad."If we fail at that," Cronkite warned, "our democracy, our republic, I think, is in serious danger."
The fallacy lies in equating "what's going on politically" with "the news of the day" as defined by establishment journalism.Establishment journalism has two defining characteristics, indeed two besetting vices:
Establishment journalism is superficial because it is nonfiction entertainment, complete with its own version of "the show must go on" known as "deadlines." Even when establishment journalism does not lie, it systematically tells half-truths by its emphasis on the most unusual reports since the previous deadline. Build a hundred houses over a period of years and you will not make the news, but a single house burning down will make banner headlines. If a glass is half full - and what glass is not? - establishment journalism will always report that it is half empty, if it says anything about it at all.
- superficiality, and
- arrogance
And then there is the other characteristic of establishment journalism, the part with which Uncle Walter is snowing us in this piece - arrogance. Establishment journalism is arrogant in claiming that its product is objective. The thing speaks for itself: in identifying "the news of the day" with "what's going on politically," Uncle Walter is claiming that establishment journalism (with which he is identified, and vice versa) is virtuous. And arguing from your own claim of your own virtue is inherently arrogant.
And what is more arrogant that telling, and standing behind, a bold-faced lie when the contrary evidence is staring us in the face? 60 Minutes put on its own version of the October Surprise last year in its infamous hit-piece touting four fraudulent "memos" purportedly from the Texas Air National Guard circa 1972. The "memos" were poor-quality copies, whereas only an original signature can be verified with any reliability, and the memos had mistakes consistent with their having been concocted recently and inconsistent with the conceit that they were genuine, 1972, TANG memos. Not only so, but all characteristics which were conveyed in those poor quality copies were consistent with the theory that they were made on a machine which did not come into existence until almost two decades after their purported date of composition.
Those documents were frauds. And since the message in those documents was one which Republicans considered irrelevant but the Democrats proclaimed to be a smoking gun, the very publication of the "documents" even had they been genuine was a partisan act. Yet CBS maintained, via an "independent" commission which CBS itself created for that purpose and no other, that the "memos' authenticity or lack thereof could not be ascertained and that the publication of them had not been politically motivated.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that is an absurd conclusion, and CBS News is tainted by it. But CBS is not alone. I have spoken of news outlets like CBS as "establishment" journalism. And the plain fact is that establishment journalism in its entirety - CBS and all the rest - swallowed CBS's "independent commission" hooey whole, and expects the rest of us to do likewise. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, so-called "objective" journalism is a self-identifying establishment which arrogantly proclaims itself the arbiter of "the news of the day" and "what's going on politically."
No, Uncle Walter's supposed lack of "the news of the day" is no danger to the Republic. Broadcast journalism, however, is.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate
Agreed. I work, and have worked, with many folks that get their news from The Today Show and then have it reaffirmed for them when they go to bed and watch The Leno Show.
The Truth is the first casualty in every war -- and we have been at war with the left for 3 decades. The MSM is in the pocket of the liberal machine, and until such a time that conservatives control the media, conservatives, no matter who they elect, are ultimately screwed.
I agree, Carolyn. Of course, this theory is the basis of the James Caraville school of campaigning, and the Clintons are its chief alcolytes.
It is characterized by its utter contempt for the mostly uniformed electorate, who (they feel) vote on ill advised emotion and image. Winning is matter of manipulating this mass into doing what you want. It focuses on attack and surface image above all, rather than on what is right or true.
Walter is right, but this manipulation of reality swings mostly left. The press mostly backs its leftward twist and serves as its dutiful mouthpiece. The interesting thing about Bush is how much he tries to put the truth and what he knows to right into his leadership. This is why people generally trust him, and why things like WMD turned out to be so damaging.
As my mathematical logic professor used to say: "Clearly we can see that this is not the case".
1. If the majority did that, Bush wouldn't be in office.
2. If the majority was parroting the MSM, Uncle Walter wouldn't be concerned in the slightest. But they're not, so Uncle Walter has got to get up on the podium and poop out of his senile old piehole about it.
By the way - EXCELLENT post as usual, c_I_c. :-)