Why Cronkite Fretted About Media's Future

John Nichols: Definitional Journalist Saw Big Media's Flaws And Worried About Monopolization

(The Nation)  John Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent.

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Walter Cronkite never stopped being a journalist.

The former CBS anchorman cared not just about the next story but about the future of reporting in a country where was known for the better part of a half century as "the most trusted name in news."

So it should come as little surprise that what worried Cronkite in the last years of his life was the collapse of journalistic quality and responsibility that came with the increasing dominance of newsgathering by a handful of media corporations.

"I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that," Cronkite told me the last time we spoke about media issues.

The definitional American anchorman, who has died at age 92, recognized that Americans would always need diverse and competing media outlets, with the resources and the skills to examine issues from a variety of perspectives -- and to challenge entrenched power.

Cronkite was, almost by definition, an "old-media" man. He covered World War II, the Nuremberg trials, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, the civil rights movement, the killing of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the space race and the first moon landing and Watergate in a career that his successor in the CBS anchor chair, Dan Rather, said was characterized by "a passion for reporting and journalism."

Yet, as his 20th century gave way to our 21st, Cronkite made common cause with media reformers who objected to corporate monopolies and the dumbed-down discourse fostered by big media outlets that were more concerned with commerce and entertainment than with civics and democracy.

Speaking of the relationship between media and democracy, Cronkite told me several years ago: "The way that works is to have multiple owners, with the hope that the owners will have different viewpoints, and with the hope that the debate will help to air all sides, or at least most sides of the issues. But right now I think we're moving away from that approach."

The reporter, editor and anchorman from 1962 to 1981, whose name remained synonymous with American journalism to the day he died, fretted in particular about a 2003 move by the Federal Communications Commission to relax media ownership rules. After the commission approved proposals that would permit a single media company to own television stations that reach up to 45 percent of American households, and that would permit a single media company to own the daily newspaper, several television stations and up to eight radio stations in the same community, Cronkite said, "I think they made a mistake, I do indeed. It seems to me that the rule change was negotiated and promulgated with the goal of creating even larger monopolies in the news-gathering business."

The veteran television journalist was especially concerned about monopolies developing at the local level.

"We are coming closer to that (monopoly situations) today, even without the relaxation of the rules," Cronkite said. "In many communities, we have seen a lot of mergers already and that is disturbing. We have more and more one-newspaper towns, and that troubles me. I think that the failure of newspaper competition in a community is a very serious handicap to the dissemination of the knowledge that the citizens need to participate in a democracy."

Cronkite stepped down as the CBS anchor in 1981. But he remained active as a journalist well into the 21st century, writing a nationally syndicated column that appeared weekly newspapers across the country until just a few years ago.

It was as he was preparing that column that Cronkite and I got to know one another and began an ongoing conversation about the state of the media.

Much had changed since his days at the anchor desk, Cronkite said. And while he shied away from suggesting that everything was better in the good old days, he admitted that he was deeply troubled by the timidity of broadcast media when it came to questioning those in power.

In 1968, Cronkite stunned the nation when, after reporting from Vietnam on the Tet offensive and events that followed it, he went on air and openly questioned whether the U.S. military would ever prevail in that conflict.

"It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is a stalemate,"Cronkite told his national audience. The anchorman went on to call for the government to open negotiations with the North Vietnamese.

Bill Moyers, who was President Lyndon Johnson's press secretary, has speculated that Cronkite's blunt assessment of the war contributed significantly to Johnson's decision to propose negotiations and to drop out of the 1968 presidential race. (Moyers and Cronkite tangled in the 1960s, when the younger man was President Lyndon Johnson's press secretary. But they eventually became so close that, when Moyers was honored for his lifetime of achievement as a broadcaster at the 2006 Emmy Awards, it was Cronkite who led the cheers.)

As the war in Iraq went horribly awry, I asked Cronkite whether a network anchorman would dare speak out in the same way that he had?

"I think it could happen, yes. I don't think it's likely to happen," he said with an audible sigh. "I think the three networks are still hewing pretty much to that theory. They don't even do analysis anymore, which I think is a shame. They don't even do background. They just seem to do headlines, and the less important it seems the more likely they are to get on the air."

In an era of increasing globalization and speed of communications, Cronkite frequently suggested in our conversations that the networks should be airing hour-long evening news programs. "For a country this big and this powerful and this diverse, a full hour is necessary," he explained. "To try to cover that in 19 minutes is simply impossible."

Cronkite also argued that the networks needed to get more comfortable with criticism. He believed that, after years of battering by conservative media critics, the networks were too averse to taking risks. During the discussion about whether a network anchor might question the wisdom of the Iraq war, he said, "If they (the networks) didn't do it, I think it would be because they are afraid to get in an ideological fight - or that doing so might lose them some viewers. ... I think that is a bad thing, a bad way to decide how to approach a story."

But what about Cronkite? Did he think that, if he were an anchorman today, he would have spoken out against the Iraq war?

"Yes, yes I do. I think that right now it would be critical to do so," he told me a few months after the invasion in 2003. "I think that right now we are in one of the most dangerous periods in our existence. Not since the Civil War has the state of our democracy been so doubtful. Our foreign policy has taken a very strange turn. And I do think I would try to say something about that."

What exactly would Cronkite have told America from the CBS anchor desk?

He said he would have suggested that the Bush administration had "confused" aggressive with defense and force with democracy.

"The policy we're following has involved us in a very expensive set of projects trying to export democracy at the end of a bayonet," he said. "That has caused a great deal of concern around the world and I think Americans need to understand this."

In particular, Cronkite said, he would have bluntly discussed his concerns about Bush's view of when it is appropriate to make war.

"Preventive war is a theory, a policy, that was put forth by the president in his policy address," Cronkite observed. "It upsets all of our previous concepts about the use of power. It is particularly worrying when our power is almost unchallenged around the world. It seems to me that this preventive action is a terrible policy to put forth to other nations. If we are viewed as a pacesetter by other nations, this is a policy that could lead to eternal war around the world. If every small nation with a border dispute believes they can go ahead and launch a pre-emptive war and that it will be approved by the greatest power, that is a very dangerous thing."

To Cronkite's view, Bush was a distinctly aggressive president. "I actually knew Herbert Hoover, believe it or not. And my time as a journalist goes back to Franklin Roosevelt. In my time, I don't think we have had any president as aggressive, except possibly Roosevelt. With Roosevelt, there was in his time a call for leadership, which he gave us. With this White House, they are aggressive on all fronts, whether there is a call for leadership or not."

At the same time, Cronkite said, the U.S. Congress had grown too pliant. Asked about the congressional debate on the Iraq war, he asked rhetorically, "What debate?"

Cronkite was heartened as the years passed and more members of Congress challenged the executive branch. He delighted when younger journalists, many of them working in new media, began to ask tougher questions and make blunter statements. He appreciated bloggers and independent media producers who used documentaries and YouTubes to hold the powerful to account.

Still, he recognized the lingering power of television in our society. And Cronkite continued to worry that broadcast news -- his medium -- had grown too deferrent to power, too stenographic, too consolidated.

"I don't know if I am in a position to encourage Congress one way or another," the old anchorman said. "However, if I were going to offer my opinion on the thing, I would certainly express my feeling that it would be better to have multiple ownership."

Walter Cronkite said he would, as well, remind the powerful that the role of journalism is not to tell Americans what they want to hear but what they need to know as citizens -- because, he said, "journalism is what we need to make democracy work."

[sjc_1]

Reagan knew the power of television from his early days as a pitchman. He eliminated many of the laws requiring public service and favored profit and total ownership by a few corporations. This was the beginning of the news for profit mess that bombards us with more while providing less.

[YuSoWrong]

It's the 1,000-channel, each-to-his-own reality that has ruined public debate in this country. When everyone got the facts, and the same facts, the debate was over what to do. Now that everyone gets different facts, the debate is over what to believe.

[xlib]

The man knew what was coming. Now, about all the hate you libsters have towards FOX. I find that very interesting. You have the bulk of the msm, including cable news that is obviously left leaning. I point to your chris mathews and his "tingle up his leg" when he hears his messiah's voice. So, there is FOX and it appears that you libs just cannot tolerate another point of view. Why is that?
See, we really didn't care when you had air america. You know, the lib station that your al franken bilked out of millions, and that was just fine with you people.
So, now you get your hard-on for FOX. I seem to remember ms chang ki clinton going on FOX and saying how well she was treated. Why, your messiah went on FOX and said the same thing.
You people are just so consumed with fear, hate and loathing I don't know how you live with yourselves.
I personally could give two rat's behinds about your lib msm. I just chose to watch and listen to what I want to watch and listen to and let the other side alone. I suggest you hate mongers do the same.
Now, put your acorn hoodies on.

[babooph]

US propagandists are lobbied fat-just like the politicos-my favorite scam is the "SPEECH $$$$" for their families or themselves-a years salary for a working stiff for a 15 min talk.

[YuSoWrong]

But oil money doesn't corrupt anyone ... ?

[InMyHumbleOpinion]

In the age of mergers and aquisitions Ted Turner tried to takeover CBS by buying stock. CBS bought back its own stock to stop it and had to dismiss 600 staff to pay for the stock. Foreign bureaus were the first to go down. But it was only the beginning. Then Larry Tisch issued the dictum that every enterprise had to make a profit. And its only gotten worse. A parade of news producers experimented with the Evening News format, MOMENTS Television {sigh} Walter had every right to be concerned.

[dovestar]

If I were producing a documentary about CBS News, I would call it, "CBS News: From Cronkite to Oblivion".
First, Cronkite showed you people how to do news right. Not that he was perfect, mind you, but he did understand that a free press is absolutely essential to tell the American People what they need to know in order to function as "We the People".

Cronkite realized that a free press was essential to the American system. Someone had to hold the powerful accountable. The present bunch of pretenders are not reporters or journalists at all but lap dogs. They are willing accomplices to keeping the American people ignorant of the shenanigans going on behind closed doors.
These days are the days of big money. The producers now realize they can make a buck with news. Bye Bye objectivity.

Walter, we will miss you. And that's the way it is.

[dovestar]

If I were producing a documentary about Walter Cronkite, I would call it, CBS News: From Cronkite to Oblivion.

Note that these days, CBS News is a strong #3 among the Big 3 Networks. From the Rather episode to those who want to

[uswarrior]

Walter Cronkit was so right to worry about, "...the collapse of journalistic quality and responsibility that came with the increasing dominance of newsgathering by a handful of media corporations", and, "...the dumbed-down discourse fostered by big media outlets that were more concerned with commerce and entertainment than with civics and democracy." American media has no conscience, no ethics. Sensationalism and political agendas rule American Journalism instead of balanced reporting on important Natioanl and International issues.

[wogerwabbit]

And all his fears came true when that foreigner Rupert Murdock created Fox News.

[wogerwabbit]

Actually, it's all the lies, twisted logic, hate and fear that they spew that makes me sick. To a man and woman, they appear to me to be bought out corporate shills protecting the bottom line by scaring the poop out of their viewers because they can and it works. There is more yelling, screaming, downright meanness and idiocy on that station than anywhere else... by miles. That's not news, that's propaganda wrapped up in a soap opera.