“I don’t watch the news anymore,” the man told me. He had just been introduced to me by a mutual friend. We were having lunch and my friend said to the man, “You’ve probably seen David on the news.”
That launched a familiar diatribe. “I used to watch the news, but now all y’all do is talk about Trump this, Trump that. How he’s turning our longtime allies against us. How prices are going up, and how the tariffs will make it even worse. How the stock market is going down and a recession is coming. How he’s too friendly with the Russians. That’s why I can’t watch. Y’all are making our president look bad.”
I could have responded in any number of ways, but I just shook his hand and said, “Nice to meet you.”
Almost every day someone complains because we have reported a story they don’t agree with, or one that doesn’t echo their views. They say, “The news ain’t been worth a (flip) since Walter Cronkite. Y’all tell everyone how to think, but Mr. Cronkite was right down the middle!”
This is ironic because the complainer obviously wants us to tell the news only from the side he prefers, which is nowhere near the middle.
Also, this may surprise you. Cronkite, the longtime CBS news anchor, was not shy about sharing his opinion. For many people, all they know about him is that he broke the news of President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 and became quite emotional. It was a moment that was captured for eternity by CBS because the network was broadcasting live at 1:38 p.m. that Friday afternoon, enabling Cronkite to interrupt the soap opera “As the World Turns.” (NBC and ABC were not providing programs to local stations at that hour, so they were literally “out to lunch”).
The truth is, Cronkite had opinions as most humans do, and when so moved, he would share them. Most notably, he produced a prime-time documentary exposing misinformation being spread by President Lyndon Johnson’s administration about the war in Vietnam.
In 1968 Cronkite went to Vietnam to get a first-hand view of what was really happening. Much to President Johnson’s chagrin, Cronkite hosted an hourlong special exposing the harsh realities of American casualties that had previously been under-reported. At the end of the program (buckle up, folks) Cronkite expressed his views. He said, “It seems now, more certain than ever, that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. It is increasingly clear that the only rational way out will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.” Wait, what? We couldn’t win the war? That was Cronkite’s informed belief. Americans were not used to hearing such negative reports on our military efforts.
Although he didn’t call it “fake news,” President Johnson was very unhappy. A few days later Cronkite had lunch with Senator Robert F. Kennedy, urging him to oppose Johnson for the Democratic presidential nomination. It’s true. The Most Trusted Man in America was inserting himself into presidential politics. Who in the Sean Hannity would do such a thing?
Make no mistake, Cronkite was an excellent journalist who reported from the front lines of World War II, and he was a solid news anchor. But his nightly newscasts always ended with an opinion segment. It was usually delivered by CBS newsman Eric Sevareid and it was clearly labeled as “opinion,” not news. Opinions were expressed in a dignified way, during a more dignified time. It’s safe to say that if Cronkite didn’t want opinions on his newscast, they wouldn’t have been there.
Unfortunately, many of today’s viewers are unable to tell the difference between opinion and news. We see a video on social media, and that’s “news” if it echoes our views or advances our beliefs.
Let’s be honest. Call it Fox Conservative Opinion, not Fox News. Or even the Trump Network, he would love that. On the other side, Call MSNBC the Liberal News Channel. If you get all of your information from just one side, you’re not getting the whole story.
