Cronkite, Russert & The Gloved One.

[David Zephyr]

It seems like Tim Russert got a lot more 24/7 love than poor Walter has received. I know that others here picked up on this, too. This seems really incorrect to me. Just wrong.

Being of the progressive variety, I was sorry for Russert and his family, but Russert's legacy, in my mind, is forever draped with his facilitating George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's lying us into invading Iraq. I give Russert only this credit: he wasn't a White House stenographer like Judy Miller was with her direct feed propaganda into the ink at the New York Times.

Possibly Russert, safe and a star there at his studio set, had seen what happened with the sacking of Phil Donahue at MSNBC and took note that it wasn't healthy for one's career to criticize that "war on terror". Robert Scheer would know a little about that, too.

Cronkite loathed the entertainment creep into television news, as did Dan Rather. But Paddy Chayefsky saw it all coming long ago, didn't he? Watching Murdoch's Faux or Fixed News is like watching "Network". Roger Ailes, a telvision hack, apparently thought Chayefsky's work was a prototype, perhaps a "pilot".

Sure Cronkite has gotten a respectable amount of coverage with his passing, but nothing like the worship, fawning and brain-numbing coverage Russert got. It doesn't seem right.

Maybe Michael Jackson has something to do with it all. Poor Farah Fawcett never really had her day. The Gloved One stole all her ink. Maybe Americans just want to take off their sackcloth and send it to the dry cleaners after the last month.

But whatever, Walter Cronkite was the real deal. Had he passed when Russert did, the coverage probably would have been greater.

I think that maybe in the aftermath of Jackson's non-stop season of mourning, Americans are just worn out with eulogies. Or maybe...maybe Chayefsky knew us better than we gave him credit for.

[stray cat]

1. Russert was a reasonably young man who still worked at NBC - death was a surprise

[kentuck]

6. I think that is mostly on target...

People that are very old or who have been sick a long time are not as much a surprise as someone 50 or younger. It is still a shock and a loss, but we are more prepared psychologically for it.

[David Zephyr]

12. Maybe...

I think that the fawning over Russert by the media was a way to clear their collective guilt for not grilling the Bush Administration as they took us to war with lies. Russert was part of that club.

Anyone who remembers or cares to, there was a young Steve Colbert who stood ridiculing all of the press...all by himself in front of the Bush Cabal and, on the other hand, praising Helen Thomas over the War in Iraq.

We had a very complicit news media for nearly four years in taking us to war. Russert was part of it.

Cronkite challenged a bad war when it had never been done by anyone of his stature. Russert, young or old, did not deserve the fawning he got. It was sickening.

[customerserviceguy]

8. That's exactly right

Tim was still working in his industry, and didn't get to live the long life that Cronkite did.

Also, I'd bet that most people in this country under 30-35 really had no idea who he was. It was like when Edward R. Murrow died in 1965, I know he had been important to my parents' and grandparents' generations, but he was just a figure from history to me.

[Horse with no Name]

26. Russert was a poster boy for a heart attack

Overweight, highly stressed...
Selling Americans lies and backpacking propaganda is hard work.

[H2O Man]

2. Interesting.

The two are not, in my opinion, in the same league. I had a great deal of respect for Walter C., and none for Tim R. It's not so much a personal thing, although I suppose that the character issue comes into play. I just thought one was talented, and the other a product.

Recommended.

[David Zephyr]

3. "a product"

Ouch.

[Horse with no Name]

27. Ouch is right.

A bought and paid for product at that.

[H2O Man]

32. When I first wrote it

that way, I didn't intend it as an "ouch!" But after reading David's response, and then your's, I suppose it not only sounded that way, but was.

Tim R was a "product endorser," not unlike the late Billy Mays. And, in both cases, a person might have come to wonder if the endorser really bought the crap they were peddling. In Billy M's case, you could accept that endorsing products was simply the way he earned a living. No one was really hurt if the products he endorsed didn't get a stain out of their t-shirt, or if the super glue really couldn't hold a million pounds on their ceiling. But Tim was pushing a product that did hurt people. He was a cheerleader for a group of people who left blood stains on the fabric of our society -- every one of those dead US soldiers and Iraqi citizens, for example, were real live human beings, until the DC death cult ordered their lives to come to a violent end.

Unlike Walter C., Tim had the background knowledge of the amount of lying that our government has done, to justify wars that are purely evil. He knew that things such as the "threat" from Saddam's WMD program were lies; he played a role in the Libby-Cheney attack on the Wilson/Plame family. He knew, but he continue to endorse the killing machine.

If you are serious about a career in the corporate media, you really have to be aware of Walter C's career highlight, which was speaking out against that killing machine, and exposing the public to the truth about the war in Vietnam. Russert was a failed product in that sense, and far more disappointing than the products that Billy M endorsed.

[BlooInBloo]

4. As far as the present-day media is concerned, the best takeaway from Cronkite is...

"What do I regret? Well, I regret that in our attempt to establish some standards, we didn't make them stick. We couldn't find a way to pass them on to another generation."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/18/cronkite/index.html

[David Zephyr]

7. BlooInBloo, I hadn't heard that quote.

Sounds just like him. Thanks for passing that along. :)

[hlthe2b]

5. Sometimes it is timing... Ray Charles' death was not covered

to the extent it deserved, masked by the overwhelming attention around Ronald Raygun's death and mega funeral weeks.

I'm sure I can think of other similar deaths that were almost afterthoughts due to the mega attention given to one person during the same time...

[dysfunctional press]

9. cronkite had plenty of respect and retrospectives between retirement & death...

russert was a young(er) man, still working in the business, and his death was sudden and unexpected.

[David Zephyr]

13. A valid point, but

thousands of American soldiers and Marines were far younger than Russert; their lives being cut short was unexpected and tragic to their families.

And Russert, unlike Cronkite, did not use his privileged position to grill the White House, to question their war. Rather, he chose to make light of opposition to the war and to the obvious lies he helped propagate. Russert played it safe when he could have made a difference.

[dysfunctional press]

18. ummm...okay...

"thousands of American soldiers and Marines were far younger than Russert; their lives being cut short was unexpected and tragic to their families."

and how many of them host network newshows and are known by name or face to millions and millions of people? :shrug:

cronkite has been out of the public eye and mind for decades- a lot of people probably thought he had been dead for awhile.

[David Zephyr]

29. You are right.

I wasn't being snarky and apologize if it seemed that way. I feel that Russert holds some heavy blame for allowing the war to go forward. Cronkite came out against the Viet Nam war and blew America's mind when he did it. Courage was my only point.

[Captain Hilts]

10. Russert died unexpectedly at a young age. Cronkite was 95, so not a surprise. nt

[Spazito]

11. I am honestly conflicted by this...

On the one hand, Mr. Cronkite towered above Russert when it came to integrity and honesty, imo, and, in that respect, his death should receive more coverage than that of Russert.

On the other hand, over-the-top coverage of Mr. Cronkite's death, especially by those who have shat on the very professional standards they are praising Mr. Cronkite for practicing, is and would be nauseating in the extreme, imo.

[David Zephyr]

14. That's how I see it.

:thumbsup:

[KoKo]

15. True...it would show them up ...plus it might be the demographics age wise...

They go for the younger audience (25-54) and while many 50 Somethings remember Cronkite and what he stood for in ethics and the incredible events he covered, there aren't many younger than 50 who could identify the way us older DU'ers would.

"Old" is out these days...as observed here and on some other blogs. Also, a lot of the footage is in black and white and that makes the plasma HD/TeeVee crowd tune out immediately. :-(

[Spazito]

16. I honestly think you are underestimating those who may be 'classified' as..

the younger audience. It is that same younger audience that is tuning OUT the MSM in droves while turning to the internet and other alternate sources to ferret out the real facts. It is that same younger audience that used YouTube to great effect in calling out the lies of the repubs during the last election.

It is not age that determines what is integrity and honesty, it is the ability to recognize it which can be found in all ages as well as lacking in all ages.

[KoKo]

17. Their advertising target age is 25-54. Not that younger viewers are

lacking in integrity or honesty. It's that the Media wants to target that group for ad dollars. Cronkite doesn't have the appeal of a Jackson or Russert to groups who aren't familiar with him.

Nothing in my post said that the young lack integrity and honesty. They just aren't old enough to have the same identification with Cronkite that they would with Jackson or Russert.

[Spazito]

19. I know it is their advertising target age...

my point was simply that they are failing with that targeted age group, when it comes to what is laughingly called news programs, because of the lack of integrity and honesty.

I certainly agree with your point that some, at the 'lower' end of the targeted age range may well not identify with Cronkite as opposed to Russert in judging the news but whether they identify with Cronkite or Russert and his ilk, the younger viewers still seem to have standards and believe the MSM is not meeting them.

I consider the 'issue' of Michael Jackson in a totally different category only because his milieu was, indeed, entertainment and not entertainment posing as news.

[KoKo]

21. What you miss is that "entertainment really "IS" news these days and that's why

many of us who have been through the cycles miss Cronkite, because he was before Roone Arledge of ABC who was the first to bring in Sports Media to make news "entertaining" which of course was the opposite of Cronkite and his Post WWII Era reporting.

I'll dig up something on Roone and post after this.

[KoKo]

22. Dupe

[KoKo]

23. Goodbye TV sports, news pioneer Roone Arledge dies." Creator of Monday Night Football' & Nightline"

(Oh the wails and gnashing of teeth when Roone Arledge died.......I thought he was an EVIL SUCKER who RUINED NEWS...but his LEGEND and LEGACY LIVES!)


Television News
Goodbye
TV sports, news pioneer Roone Arledge dies. The creator of ''Monday Night Football'' and ''Nightline'' was 71

By Gary Susman

Roone Arledge, the ABC executive largely responsible for turning sports and news into primetime entertainment, died in New York Thursday at age 71 from prostate cancer, according to a statement by the network. He had retired in 1998 after five decades in broadcasting, during which he ran ABC's sports and news divisions and turned television's coverage of both into personality- and narrative-driven spectacles.

In the 1960s, Arledge championed such novel production techniques as the instant replay, the freeze-frame, and the use of hand-held cameras to add immediacy and entertainment value to football coverage. He added drama to TV sports, making a star of controversial sportscaster Howard Cosell and packaging a variety of events under the ''ABC's Wide World of Sports'' banner and coining (along with sportscaster Jim McKay) that show's phrase, ''the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.''). He introduced the personality profile to Olympics coverage, making stars of obscure amateur athletes. In 1970, he launched ''Monday Night Football,'' giving sports a permanent place in the primetime lineup.

In 1977, he added leadership of ABC's news division to his responsibilities. He created starmaking vehicles for the network's underused in-house news personalities -- ''Nightline'' for Ted Koppel, ''World News Tonight'' for Peter Jennings, ''20/20'' for Barbara Walters -- or for those newscasters he lured away from other networks -- ''This Week'' for David Brinkley, ''Primetime'' for Diane Sawyer. He spent lavishly to recruit and keep his anchors, driving the price up for newscasters at all national TV news outlets and turning them into stars who are as famous and well-paid as the newsmakers they cover.

In September, Arledge won a lifetime achievement Emmy, adding to the 36 Emmys he'd already won. The occasion showed that even Arledge's competitors acknowledged his pervasive influence, with a testimonial from Don Hewitt -- the producer of ''60 Minutes'' at CBS and the only executive in network news whose longevity and influence rivals Arledge's -- saying, ''Just about everything that's good in television has a Roone Arledge trademark on it.''

[Spazito]

24. Well, I would differ only in that I say entertainment replaced the news...

because news, real news, means more than words mouthed by pretty-faced readers, imo, it includes investigative journalism where warranted.

[KoKo]

25. Yes....I gotcha...on that point... I do understand. n/t

[David Zephyr]

30. I think you made my point for me that news became entertainment.

And Russert was more of an entertainer than a real hard nosed journalist. He gave a pass to the greatest strategic military screw-uo in our nation's history. Phil Donahue was fired by Jack Welch from the NBC/MSNBC family for doing what Russert should have. Entertainers rarely risk alienating their audiences and therein advertising dollars.

[Garbo 2004]

20. Russert had MSNBC giving him a practically 24/7 mournathon for days, long after other media had paid

their obligatory respects and moved on. As much as Russert may have indeed meant to his colleagues, NBC and, let's not forget GE, MSNBC's performance as a (purported) news network, spending days on the Russert hagiography, was IMO embarassing at best and at worst, just a tad disturbing.

I wondered at the time if Jack Welch & his GE buds had influenced MSNBC's coverage. Speaking of Jack Welch, Russert's former lord, master and mentor, here's a transcript of Jack Welch on Faux's Hannity & Colmes, wherein Sean Hannity nearly wets himself in praise of Russert. Has a bit of a "Through the Looking Glass" effect. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,367622,00.html

Russert was a relatively youngish man, a contemporary and, importantly, a member of the club: an insider in the symbiotic world of media and politics. I think his sudden death really shocked a number of them, not just as a loss of a friend and colleague, but also as a reminder of their own mortality. A jarring reminder that regardless of how much they may have it made in their profession and life, they're not above or immune to the human condition. They could be gone in a blink, just like any of us. It was as if, perhaps, they needed Russert to be all those wonderful things they said he was, to be as significant as they said he was, to give themselves some meaning. Or something. We all have to tell ourselves stories of how things are in order to get by, I think. To try and make sense of what makes no sense, to restore some sense of order...even if we know it's only an artifice we make up to get by. So strange to see a major media organization apparently going through that process for days on the air over one of their own, selling their story to us.

But on the other hand, as Paddy Chayefsky knew, that's what they do. That's what they've always done: create stories and sell them to us. They create versions of reality and sell them to us along with laundry soap, cars, and pills for diseases specifically invented to sell pills. How perfectly apt perhaps, if one is thinking of "Network," that it was the GE-owned NBC/Universal, the embodiment of the military/industrial/entertainment complex, mourning one of its own, the "tough newsman" whose program Cheney liked to use as a friendly venue for peddling his lies. Perhaps I'm just jaded. Over the years I found Russert's reputation as a tv "journo" to be overblown and the cloyingly sentimental re-envisioning of his hallowed youth a careful literary construct, an artifice just like Russert's own persona and reputation. JMO.

For many of the current crop of media folks, Cronkite was an historical artifact. He wasn't a contemporary or a colleague. He wasn't one of them and the world he came from was long gone. He wasn't telegenic, he wasn't a personality. Likely the networks praising him wouldn't have given him a job if he started out now. Perhaps as a producer or correspondent, but never an anchor. What network would spend millions on a guy who looked like a sad sack, a guy who never looked really young even when he was, a bit pudgy with a dubious hairline and who looked as if he got his suits from Nixon's tailor? Even with a major makeover, he would never approach the sleek and stylish Brian Williams, the very model of a major network anchorman. (h/t to Gilbert & Sullivan.) The corporate media will praise Cronkite, bury him and move on without a ripple.

And frankly I think that it will be a good thing if in death Cronkite's memory is spared the hours of maudlin sentimental bloviating that accompanied Russert's demise. It would be good if Cronkite is not be blown up to be something far more than he really was. A fitting tribute perhaps would be to feature his work, run some of his programs, specials. More clips: like when he was pissed off at the Chicago '68 Dem convention. Cronkite was a pro: when he got pissed and it showed, we noticed. Cronkite had a good long life spanning most of the 20th century and almost a decade of the 21st, he was a TV presence for many of us in our youth at a troubled time, and seems to have been a person of some values and integrity. I didn't realize he himself held some liberal views until long after he retired. Cronkite likely would have appreciated that. Good night, Walter.

[David Zephyr]

31. Simply excellent observations!

I'll watch for more of your posts.

[KoKo]

33. I guess I should take that person off my "Ignore" list. I didn't see the post

...but, I'm fearful of taking them off "Ignore" since I only have 5 people on there in 8 years on DU...so I figure they must have been so offensive to me...I just had to.
Whatever. It must have been good for YOU to think it was...Can you give a snip of what they said that you agreed with?

[dflprincess]

28. If too much time is spent on Cronkite

the corporations who now own the news would be reminding us (and showing the young ones) what a journalist is suppose to be. We can't have that.
It's like Wellstone. All the politicans love to pay lip service to him but they'd really prefer that no more Wellstones get elected.

So, there will be some lip service paid to Uncle Walter and what a great reporter he was but the powers that be will all breath a sigh of relief that there are no Cronkites or Murrows left.