Who are *your* most trusted names in news?

[Posteritatis]

With Cronkite's passing that particular bar has, sadly, been very much lowered. There hasn't been A Most Trusted Person In News for awhile, and it might be a long time before there is again given the rather sorry crop that we've got to choose from. I have mixed feelings on that; on the one hand I'm deeply upset that there's nobody left with that kind of obvious reputation for intelligence and integrity around. On the other hand, if such a person emerged again today, or next year or whatever, I'd be worrying about all our trust eggs winding up in one basket and the costs to be paid if such a person didn't deserve his or her reputation after all.

So here we are; someone who stood astride the field like a colossus is gone and we're left with what we're left with. A lot of the big names are jokes at best, and even the good ones don't have anything near that nigh-universal reputation. As a result, and with the massive spread of media in all its forms, we're left with a lot of other candidates for People I Can Trust To Tell Me What's Going On. This is a good thing, in my opinion, but it has the downside in that the scope of these people is diminished. There might be people at the state or provincial level, or even columnists in local newspapers or radio news, who a few of us have deemed honourable sources of information, totally reliable and trustworthy. The problem is, the rest of us - or the rest of you, in the cases of my own - just aren't known. That makes me more than a little sad.

I've been trying to think since yesterday about who my own most trusted names in news are. There are quite a few who I like quite a bit on the larger scales like Olbermann, and a few I'm a rather shameless fanboy of down at more local levels like my local paper's editorial cartoonist, but I'm not sure how many there are where I'd immediately think "If ______ said it, it's probably true," even if I'd thought something else beforehand. I'm trying to think of some candidates right now; the closest I can immediately think of is Gwynne Dyer, who is a fairly tightly focused columnist on security and diplomacy and who's hauled me out of my comfort zone a few times. Not many others though, except (as mentioned above), a couple of local newspaper columnists who nobody twenty miles from me would likely have heard of.

Can any of you think of any names who you think are doing the whole journalism thing correctly? Anybody out there whose obscurity or lack of reach bothers you? Anybody you can think of who isn't obscure in general, but might be in North America?

Let's do an accounting of the field. It's lost one of its greatest names, but I'd like to know who you think is giving a good attempt at rattling around inside his shoes.

[tj2001]

1. None of them is worth a damn nowadays

after all the whoring they did for Iraq, and now for the insurance companies.

[Posteritatis]

8. None? Really? Not one municipal editor or investigative reporter? Zero point zero? (nt)

[Uncle Joe]

2. Bill Moyers on PBS, unfortunately his program airs only once a week. n/t

[grantcart]

3. kpete at LBN

[City Lights]

5. ...

:thumbsup:

[madokie]

27. kpete at GD

actually

[Arkana]

4. The last guy I trusted completely with the news doesn't do it anymore.

Dan Rather was chased out of a job by the morons on the right for no reason other than he reported a story that was true with evidence that Karl Rove fabricated.

[misanthrope]

21. Then that was his fault and a product of compromising journalistic ethics...

...his excuse -- "I just knew it was true" -- could just as well be used by those on the right and is a perfect example of what's wrong with today's media. "Trust but verify." He just went on prejudice and supposition.

[Sal Minella]

29. The bulk of the "flawed ethics" was not found on Rather's side of the equation

Being blindsided by outright deliberate malignant skullduggery is something that could befall any ethical person.

Edit: grammar.

[spanone]

6. journalism is dead in the u.s.a otherwise SOMEONE would have exposed the evil cheney

the media is spoonfed it's info

[Posteritatis]

9. Okay, so don't limit your candidates to Americans. Got anything? (nt)

[Patsy Stone]

7. I like Martin Savidge and, of course, Bill Moyers

in addition to Keith.

Savidge left NBC for PBS and does a weeknight news shown called Worldfocus.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/20/martin-savidge-nbc-news-c_n_120032.html

[sakabatou]

10. He may not be news, but I trust Jon Stewart more than most journalists

[blondeatlast]

15. Sad-but he's closer to Cronkite than most of the pretty boys. Able to get to the

heart of the matter in 22 minutes, just like Uncle Walter (whom ;m just old enough to remember covering Watergate, eTC,)

[scarletwoman]

11. Bill Moyers is the only one I can think of as far as TV goes.

Robert Fisk, John Pilger in the print media.

Those are the only journalists actually worthy of the title that spring to mind.

sw

[varelse]

12. Amy Goodman

:P

[tilsammans]

13. Bill Moyers and . . .

. . . Dan Rather, whom I miss terribly.

[yurbud]

14. print and broadcast news are dead

[Spazito]

16. Peter Mansbridge of CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)

He anchors CBC News which still, imo, focuses on reporting the news as opposed to opining about it.

[rurallib]

17. Amy Goodman, Bill Moyers, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann,

Laura Flanders, and of course Jon Stewart.

[Kalun D]

25. /\ + 1

Agree with these (on the TV) 'course that's all that's majority statistically relevant. and they pull some punches in order to keep their jobs

going to the internet the crowd is much more diverse but less relevant

[Moochy]

18. To avoid the "Obit-ainment" last nite...

I watched BBC America news. I'll take their mildly state-firewalled editorial content over 30 minutes of obituary-based-docu-dramas.

[monmouth]

19. Was CBS corporate-owned when Cronkite was working there? I'm

thinking that has much if not all to do with todays lack of credible journalism. Check in with the boss to see what the days' meme will be. I don't think Cronkite had to deal with that, and if it had been subjected, he may have wanted no part of it..

[Patsy Stone]

23. I've noticed how no one is talking about the switch to news for profit

as they discuss the differences between then and now. I was hoping Dan Rather would mention it last night on Rachel's show, but he didn't. I was actually surprised she didn't bring it up either.

I think that was truly the death of broadcast news. In the beginning, the point was to present the news as well as possible, with as little bias as possible, for the public good. Once it became a for-profit division, the priorities changes and the serious people were pushed out in favor of pretty people who could read a telepromter.

[Kalun D]

26. Sports and Entertainment is not "news"

when sports and entertainment started to make the nightly news, with pharma advertisement in between, that's when I turned it off.

of course the TV has rarely been if ever a source of the real deep stories of avarice and greed, you have to go to the internet for that

[scarletwoman]

32. Funny, I was just thinking about that very thing.

I even started to mentally compose a post about it to do as an OP, and was trying to decide whether I wanted to just blurt something out, or do some research and include some references and stuff.

I don't remember exactly when the change happened, although I DO remember quite clearly that I was utterly appalled about at the time.

sw

[Patsy Stone]

34. GMTA

For greed and profit, I'd start looking in the late 80s, although I don't remember the exact time either.

Off to see Harry Potter. :hi:

[Initech]

20. Stewart / Colbert

[rationalcalgarian]

28. Yep!

The only ones I can trust!

[Ladyhawk]

30. Agreed. nt

[Arkana]

33. OK, Stewart I trust too--and he's funny to boot.

It's why I never want him on a major news network--they'd handcuff him completely.

[Journeyman]

22. Linda Ellerbee . . .

though she was too principled for network news and now works for Nickelodeon.

Overnight was probably the finest news program ever produced for American television. It was recognized by the jurors of the duPont Columbia Awards as "possibly the best written and most intelligent news program ever." Winner of multiple Emmys, three Peabody Awards, and a number of duPont honors, Ellerbee now spends her time producing programs for a variety of cable channels, with Nick News her main endeavor.

Had network news not taken the turns it has in recent decades, we'd all be better off with Ellerbee working there. As it is, she considers herself better off away from network news, and who can fault her?

[Patsy Stone]

24. Love her.

Always loved her. :loveya:

[timeforpeace]

31. There is no such thing. It's a marketing slogan for gawd's sake.

[mmonk]

35. Amy Goodman.