{"id":3424,"date":"2015-08-20T08:00:15","date_gmt":"2015-08-20T13:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/?p=3424"},"modified":"2015-08-25T11:53:38","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T16:53:38","slug":"where-is-walter-cronkite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2015\/08\/20\/where-is-walter-cronkite\/","title":{"rendered":"WHERE IS UNCLE WALTER?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who speaks the truth out there?\u00a0 Where do I go for facts?\u00a0 Who are these people dressing up like reporters and authorities, and these sites that pose as news sources?<\/p>\n

\"Walter<\/a><\/p>\n

Walter Cronkite removing his glasses after telling America President Kennedy had died.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Who should I trust?\u00a0 Where are the professionals on a righteous mission, to get all-the-news, sort it out, prioritize it, vett it for me, and then present it, with order, urgency saved for only that which merits urgency?\u00a0 Where is Uncle Walter?<\/p>\n

_____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____<\/p>\n

As a little kid I spent many hours with my little green army men, having wars in the no-grass area under the swing we had chained to an oak limb in the back yard.\u00a0 I wanted to be Sergeant Alvin York in WWI and Audie Murphy in WWII.<\/p>\n

As I got older here came Watergate, and the bride no longer deserved to walk the aisle in white.\u00a0 I was patriotic, but now with conditions.\u00a0 I\u2019d risk my life for All Men Are Created Equal, I\u2019d risk my life for Abe Lincoln, and I\u2019d risk my life to stop Hitler, but I wasn\u2019t In if I didn\u2019t believe in the cause.\u00a0 To put it simply, I wasn\u2019t gonna die for cheaper gas at the pump.<\/p>\n

But curious, curious, as I thought about this in the privacy of my own mind, there was this One Thing that I thought was worth my life \u2013 Freedom Of The Press.<\/p>\n

I remember standing in line at a grocery store in the 80\u2019s, and there on the cover of the National Enquirer was a story about an Elvis love child, an alien abduction, and a new weight loss breakthrough centered around celery, and I thought, \u2018In the whole history of civilization we\u2019ve only had Freedom of the Press for two centuries, and already, look how they defile it\u2026\u2019 and I asked myself, \u2018Would you give your life to defend their right to do this?\u2019 and the answer was yes.<\/p>\n

_____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 ____<\/p>\n

I hold it near to sacred, that I was blessed to be alive when there was something between those in power and those without, an entire industry of journalism, a process, to vet facts, and a platform, where whosoever could hear it, read it, and see it.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t perfect.\u00a0 Nor should it be.\u00a0 American journalism had only been around for a few generations.\u00a0 It was good, on its way to great.\u00a0 So I thought.<\/p>\n

_____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 ____<\/p>\n

Once Upon A Time\u2026there was only ABC, CBS and NBC.\u00a0 There was news in the morning, there was news at noon, but for serious grownups, the news that mattered came at 5:30PM CST.\u00a0 Each network saved its star journalists for the evening news: Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC, Frank Reynolds, Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner on ABC, and the one you\u2019d see at our home, Uncle Walter, Walter Cronkite, on CBS.<\/p>\n

Uncle Walter was your uncle, your grandfather, the elder in your church.\u00a0 They\u2019d do these polls back in the day, Most Trusted Man in America, and Uncle Walter was always way up there, often higher than the President.<\/p>\n

When he choked up, breaking the news that President Kennedy had died, it meant it was okay for the rest of us to cry us a river.\u00a0 And when he returned from a look-see in Vietnam and said it was a war we couldn\u2019t win, we shut it down.<\/p>\n

And now\u2026?<\/p>\n

_____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve lost the gatekeepers.\u00a0 Now its roosters crowing before dawn and monkeys howling in the jungle.<\/p>\n

Still: with Obama and his birth certificate!\u00a0 There are people out there that think the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was part of a complicated government conspiracy to pass gun control!<\/p>\n

Last week a lion was shot by a dentist and it was a Big Deal.\u00a0 My knee jerked too and I was mad for a day.\u00a0 And then here came the voices in the choir: all this fuss over one lion and what about the starving kids in Africa; what about abortion; what about the seven people shot per hour in America; and what about global warming\u2026<\/p>\n

_____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 ____<\/p>\n

I\u2019m pushing sixty.\u00a0 Never in my life have I been less informed and more confused.\u00a0 I get more truth from comedians than I do from journalists.<\/p>\n

All the old formats of delivering news are wounded shells of what they used to be\u2026replaced by\u2026what?\u00a0 There\u2019s a democracy about news via social media, but there\u2019s too many voices, each raising theirs to be heard over the others, and it\u2019s become this haystack and I don\u2019t have the energy to try to find the needle.<\/p>\n

When I was a school kid we were told that America was a place where \u201canyone\u201d could grow up and be President, and we all looked around the room, and inside ourselves.\u00a0 As a grownup I can\u2019t imagine why anybody would want to be President.<\/p>\n

Just as when I was a kid, the news seems above me, away from me, apart from me.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have enough ears for all the yelling, don\u2019t have enough patience to listen to people speaking who should never be allowed a microphone.<\/p>\n

I feel out of place in this big, rowdy, disorganized America.\u00a0 Die for Freedom of the Press?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know anymore.\u00a0 Who\u2019s who and what\u2019s what, and is any of it worthy of respect?<\/p>\n

_____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 ____<\/p>\n

This edition of Uncle P\u2019s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, where we hope all your facts are friendly and all your news is nice.<\/em><\/p>\n

Uncle P can be reached at 81creativity@gmail.com.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who speaks the truth out there?\u00a0 Where do I go for facts?\u00a0 Who are these people dressing up like reporters and authorities, and these sites that pose as news sources? Who should I trust?\u00a0 Where are the professionals on a righteous mission, to get all-the-news, sort it out, prioritize it, vett it for me, and [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[59],"yoast_head":"\nWHERE IS UNCLE WALTER? - BestOfSwla<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2015\/08\/20\/where-is-walter-cronkite\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WHERE IS UNCLE WALTER? - BestOfSwla\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Who speaks the truth out there?\u00a0 Where do I go for facts?\u00a0 Who are these people dressing up like reporters and authorities, and these sites that pose as news sources? 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