They don't make them like that anymore! America's Anchorman

Those who have been around long enough will recall the almost amazing influence - would that be possible in 2009? - that Walter Conkrite had on shaping the opinions of the American people. Witness his anchoring the reports on CBS coming out of Vietnam.

Conkrite has now just passed away aged 92. A legend in his own lifetime? Someone unique in the media?

John Nichols, writing in The Nation, pays tribute in "Walter Cronkite: Definitional Journalist Saw Big Media's Flaws":

"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."

Vale Walter Conkrite.

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