Good-Bye Walter Cronkite
By Jim E. Reames (03/21/03)
Walker Cronkite threw away his “most trusted man in American” title when, on Tuesday night, March 18, 2003 the retired Evening News Anchor used his celebrity status to publicly issue a blistering dissent to President Bush’s decision to wage war with Iraq. He made that public stand on the campus of Dew University were he, himself, arrogantly ripped the so-called “arrogance” of our President just days before military hostility began.
Like so many other Americans can do I still remember the day, hour, and minute when Mr. Cronkite appeared on public television to announce the assassination of the late President John F. Kennedy. And, yes, back at that time we viewers held high regard for most news media personnel. Without question, Mr. Cronkite has earned his place in the chronicles of modern media history. His contributions and sense of fairness were greatly appreciated by a nation that was still coming into its own era of modern technology.
I remember those days well, too. The world was far different back then. Whenever major news events took place it was at a slower pace than it is today. We viewers were far more dependent upon the integrity of men like Walker Cronkite to assimilate, evaluate, then disseminate in a few short minutes what “he” and his news team deemed important for viewer consumption. Thus he was both an editor, a censor, and interpreter of events. What earned Mr. Cronkite public trust was his natural ability to present the news in such a way that it made sense to the common viewer. Many of them were middle-age individuals who held personal memories of actually seeing telephone and power lines coming to their farms and villages. When he was alive my own father possessed memories of horse and buggy days, prior to WW-I. So when they saw the invention of radio, television, and the post-war industrialization of the world they were grateful for what “real-time” news came their way. For that matter, I can remember news media at the Saturday matinee between movies and, also, the world’s first satellite-aided news broadcast.
Cronkite was a man who could communicate the news of the day to everyone---at any level of education and intelligence. His comments were as welcomed in the living rooms of urban cities as they were in the smallest farmhouse of Nebraska or the cabins of Alaska. He was trusted because to the best of his ability (or so it appeared) he resisted the human temptation of placing his own personal “spin” on news he delivered. But those days are long gone. And now, gone, too are the character and the integrity of this great man of the media.
Because of the technical break through of talk radio, the lightening speed of personal-wireless communication, the World Wide Web, the Internet, and a host of other mass media inventions we viewers (the middle and lower class, which I am a member of) are finally---once and for all--- somewhat liberated from having to depend as much upon people like Walter Cronkite, Ted Kopple, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, Bob Schieffer, Dan Rather, or George Stephanopoulos to work up the daily news broadcast for our consumption.
Just as significant, most Americans are far better educated than our previous generations were. We are far better informed. Hence, we do not need for news anchor personnel to do our thinking for us. For example, today’s main stream news media personnel will listen to the President of the United States address the nation, then within minutes after the speech still exhibit the arrogance to explain to us the meaning of what we just heard, with our own ears. That attitude, in and of it self, is so condescending it is why most Americans have turned main steam news media channels off.
In the 1980s and throughout the 90s we turned to talk radio, no different than how trapped citizens behind the Iron Curtain often times risked going to prison that they might listen to Radio Free Europe broadcasts. Now our prior apathy of the integrity of the news is being rejuvenated by a balanced presentation of newsworthy events by newcomers like FOX Broadcasting. Conservative web sites and chat rooms are as alive as a bee hive in the springtime.
What does all this technological change really mean tough? Plain and simple: freedom of the press is prevailing, albeit the liberal left is at a loss of how to control that change. The decades old left wing, one-world government, liberal propaganda machine is being challenged head on. Thus, the liberal left has lost their grip of power over our lives, just as Communist Russia could not silence Radio Free Europe. This debate about President George Bush is proof we Americans are more intelligent than what the main stream media is willing to give us credit for.
For too many years the mainstream media censored out what it considered unimportant for us “common people” to know. But thanks to modern technology the floodgates of freedom of the press are opened wide. The ship has left port. What the main stream media did was they destroyed our trust of them. Thus, slander and personal attacks are the signs of their trying to hold on to the power that used to guide and steer public opinion. But the fact of the matter is, although most of us did not prefer war, the vast majority of the American people fully support how the President handled the crisis. The more that the liberal media rants and raves then the more they will expose their own bias, wrong that it is.
As far as the war in Iraq is concerned, Mr. Cronkite, the President of the United States saw what he considered a sincere security threat to this great nation. He took the advice of many Democrat partisan advisors and went to the United Nations for assistance and support, where he found nothing less than “committee indecision” and political sabotage. There are many, which claim the president’s diplomatic efforts were a “failure” whereas I consider them enlightening because that effort has separated the wheat from the chaff.
The fact that you (Mr. Cronkite) disagree with the President is your right. It is your business. But I strongly disagree when the mainstream news media elevates your “personal opinion” above that of my own. More, I am offended you would dare to use your elite status to make such public outcries. Using your well-earned celebrity status to make the public stand that might be perceived as psychological aid and comfort to the enemy is not appreciated! It is insulting, a disgrace. The arrogance that you yourself now exhibit, as if to suggest you are better informed, wiser, more intelligent than the rest of us places you in the rank of false illuminati.
What irritates me about the liberal elite, which I now consider you (Walter Cronkite) a member of is you believe modern day man is better and wiser, than when the human race was first created by God. I hate to break the news to “You-all”: But the nature of man is just as corrupt and self-serving today, as it was when Cain killed Able. In other words there will always be wars among nations and men until such time God removes the sinful nature of mankind. When we look at the foundation and bylaws of the United Nations it is easy to see a Communist (godless) manifesto. In addition, when you take a close look at Communism it places more importance on the State (the wisdom of man) than in the divine inspiration of God or of individual freedom and private property rights. That is what appears to be separating today’s high-minded (one-world United Nations socialists) and liberal elitists, Democrats, and the French-minded from present day Americans.
When will the world wake up to the reality there are evil individuals who want the whole world to be run by the United Nations? These same people turned their eyes away---They failed to act when millions of innocent human beings were being slaughtered in the “Killing fields” of Cambodia. Where was their action when hundreds of thousands of innocent humans were being slaughtered in Africa? Why have they not stood up to the atrocities of North Korea and Iraq? One has to ask: Do we Americans want to have anything to do with these people at the United Nations, or even with France? Would the United Nations or the French even lift a finger should a future tyrant United States President decide to disarm all private citizens, in order to tax us heavily? Would anyone in the United Nations come to the rescue of American citizens being tortured behind prison walls? The answer is a resounding “No. The United Nations would never vote to come to defend our Bill of Rights!”
So good by, Walter Cronkite. Your words hold no value and no meaning. Your words are no longer trusted by many Americans. With your tongue you fail onto your own sword.
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