From Walter Cronkite to Trump Apologist

[MineralMan]

I grew up with CBS Television News. Channel 2 in Los Angeles was one of the first TV stations available to me in 1952 when we got our first TV set. By the time I was halfway through High School in 1962, Walter Cronkite took over as the evening news anchor, but I remember the times when the evening TV news was just a 15 minute thing.

Everyone trusted Walter Cronkite. I have no idea what his politics were, because that was not relevant to his news delivery. You could count on anything Cronkite said on the CBS evening news to be factual.

Now, CBS is about to put Fox Anchor Bret Baier in that seat to replace John Dickerson, who recently announced that he would be leaving that position. Add that to CBS news caving to Donald Trump, and they have found a formula that will move me to another network for my late afternoon TV news feed. In the end, it might not be Baier, but it's sure to be someone from the right.

Things are rapidly changing, and for the worse. It's intensely frustrating, and I will respond by watching a different network.

[Ocelot II]

1. NBC had Huntley and Brinkley during the same time slot.

You actually had your choice of news programs that were reliable and unbiased. We no longer do. We can go to MSNBC as a last resort for programs that are not right-biased, but the evening shows are liberal op-eds, not news broadcasts. There are no Cronkites, Huntleys or Brinkleys any more who allowed to broadcast straight, unbiased news with the full support of their media employers.

[MineralMan]

2. More's the Pity!

Actually, the broadcast networks still tend to provide the news with less bias than other outlets. Cable news ceased to be the news quite some time ago, going for a "explain the news to us idiots" concept. I still dislike that, so I'm still taking in broadcast network news in half-hour segments. That's why I still read a daily newspaper, too. I don't bother with the editorial page, either. I just want the facts presented to me. I'll figure out the rest on my own.

It's getting harder and harder to get those facts, though.

[MineralMan]

3. Yes, but where I was, the CBS transmitter was better.

We lived on the edge of reception from Los Angeles, so we didn't always get high quality reception until a community antenna system was installed in our small town. My father worked on that system when it was put in, back in the mid 1950s. One of the first cable TV systems anywhere. Amazing!

[mobeau69]

4. If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America. - LBJ

And he was right.

[RANDYWILDMAN]

5. The networks could have stopped Trump in 2015

When he came down that escalator and complained about people he didn't like.

They ran Gary Hart off for a picture showing something not quite right, Trump there was plenty of ammo and they used nothing on him..

The Networks not only didn't get rid of him, they liked the story and he is buddy buddy with all the owners even though he is a low class, low IQ, barely millionaire grifter and they all knew it let him have a platform anyways !! (it was always about all the DRAMA he could bring and yet they never cared about the actual damage he could do)

Pathetic

[Ocelot II]

6. Nightline with Ted Koppel was very good, too.

I think it's still on but I haven't watched it since Koppel left.

[Aristus]

7. I didn't know until after Cronkite died that he was basically an old school New Deal liberal.

I don't know if any of the people who depended on his journalism knew. He just did his job. Very well.

I miss him. And all of the other Golden Age of TV News Anchors: John Chancellor, David Brinkley, Garrick Utley, Irving R. Levine, Peter Jennings, Jessica Savitch, Rahema Ellis, and more.

[MineralMan]

8. I don't remember him ever saying anything about his own politics.

I try not to mourn too much over all those names I remember. Makes me sound like an old man, which I certainly am. From the early 60s right up to, say, the 90s, the broadcast TV news was about all there was, along with the daily papers. I always relied on a big city daily paper for getting the complete story, but the TV news was also important for the breaking headlines. Local TV news, too, was important.

I have to face it: I'm a news junkie. I have to get my fix, or I don't feel right. So, here I am, reader of daily newspapers and watcher of news on TV. I'm not going to change, although I might have to switch channels.