Flashback: Warnings from (Uncle) Walter Cronkite

[G_j]

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/19/cronkite-iraq-war/

Flashback: Cronkite Warned In Lead-Up To Iraq War — ‘We Are Going To Be In Such A Fix’

Americans of all ages and the journalist community are remembering the life and career of Walter Cronkite, famously revered as “the most trusted man in America.”

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald notes that the media is largely glossing over Cronkite’s “most celebrated and significant moment” — “when he stood up and announced that Americans shouldn’t trust the statements being made about the war by the U.S. Government and military, and that the specific claims they were making were almost certainly false.” Indeed, few journalists have noted Cronkite’s criticism of the Iraq war just as the invasion took place in March 2003:

At a Drew University forum, Cronkite said he feared the war would not go smoothly, ripped the “arrogance” of Bush and his administration and wondered whether the new U.S. doctrine of “pre-emptive war” might lead to unintended, dire consequences.

“Every little country in the world that has a border conflict with another little country … they now have a great example from the United States,” Cronkite, 86, said in response to a question from Drew’s president, former Gov. Thomas Kean. <...>

While many are confident the United States would easily oust Saddam Hussein, Cronkite said he isn’t so sure. “The military is always more confident than circumstances show they should be,” he said.

..more..

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http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1108-01.htm


Published on Saturday, November 8, 2003 by the Capital Times / Wisconsin

Cronkite Fears Media Mergers Threaten Democracy
by John Nichols

The most trusted name in news is worried about what is happening to the news media in America.

"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," said Walter Cronkite, the former CBS News anchorman, whose name remains synonymous with American journalism.

"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."

Speaking to The Capital Times before this weekend's National Conference on Media Reform, Cronkite said he is particularly concerned by the decision of the Federal Communications Commission to relax media ownership rules. By a 3-2 vote in June, 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.

"I think they made a mistake, I do indeed," Cronkite said of the FCC. "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."

..more..

[timeforpeace]

1. Well, at least his "every little country..." prediction hasn't come true. Yet.

Well, except for the US. We are still doing it. Hello, Pakistan.

[spanone]

2. media mergers threaten democracy.....prophetic words

[Spazito]

3. The media self-censoring yet again...

They cannot point out Mr. Cronkite's words and actions because it would shine one big spotlight on themselves and how sadly lacking they are.

Thanks for posting this, it is a good read.

[WCGreen]

4. Well, when some blogger points this out they laugh it off and say they

aren't trained journalists...

Well, there hasn't been a real journalist on any TV show in years. They are all pretty faces more concerned with intonation and meaningful head movements.

[Spazito]

7. There is no journalism practiced within the MSM, that is for sure...

what we have instead is propagandized infotainment attempting to pose as journalism and failing miserably.

[wroberts189]

5. +5

[spin]

6. The First Amendment used to mean something to people like...

Walter Cronkite.

That's why he was called the "most trusted man in America".

Edward R. Murrow was another great newscaster who warned of coming changes to news reporting.

Interestingly, Walter Cronkite was opposed to the war on drugs.

Drug war is a war on families
By Walter Cronkite

Article Published: Sunday, August 08, 2004

In the midst of the soaring rhetoric of the recent Democratic National Convention, more than one speaker quoted Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, invoking “the better angels of our nature.” Well, there is an especially appropriate task awaiting those heavenly creatures - a long-overdue reform of our disastrous war on drugs. We should begin by recognizing its costly and inhumane dimensions.

Much of the nation, in one way or another, is victimized by this failure - including, most notably, the innocents, whose exposure to drugs is greater than ever.

This despite the fact that there are, housed in federal and state prisons and local jails on drug offenses, more than 500,000 persons - half a million people! Clearly, no punishment could be too severe for that portion of them who were kingpins of the drug trade and who ruined so many lives. But by far, the majority of these prisoners are guilty of only minor offenses, such as possessing small amounts of marijuana. That includes people who used it only for medicinal purposes.
http://blog.norml.org/2009/07/17/most-trusted-man-in-america-also-supported-marijuana-law-reform/

[G_j]

8. "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America" LBJ

just goes to show how far to the right this country has moved, now that Cronkite's ideas sound so 'leftist'.

[G_j]

9. ==

[Wednesdays]

10. K&R

:kick: