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Why the World Trusted Walter
It really all comes down to which style of anchor-acting we prefer. Cronkite performed aloofness, detachment. The lachrymose moment in his reporting of Kennedy’s killing was so affecting because he rarely displayed any type of emotion.
But even today’s network anchors are casual emoters, striving for a kitchen-table intimacy with viewers. As for the cable anchors, their faces are the upper body equivalent of a failed sphincter nerve. To watch Campbell Brown mimic happiness, sorrow, anger, compassion, indignation, earnestness in the space of a few minutes—the only element of her that stays jarringly the same is her shiny, bouncy hair and her shiny, dewy eyes—is to experience what the French poet Rimbaud called a “derangement of the senses.” Though transformed by the camera, Cronkite performed for an audience. Brown et al. perform for the camera.
The change from Cronkite’s stage acting to today’s anchors’ film acting is irreversible. And despite all the laments for the bygone time of reliable news that have attended Cronkite’s death, we wouldn’t have it any other way. In the last few days we have heard, like a mantra, that Cronkite was “the most trusted man in America.” The implication is that there has been a terrible falling-off, that the news has let us down and we will never be able to trust anyone like that again.
This, however, is nostalgic nonsense, similar to the way we once exterminated Native Americans, drove them into reservations, and then began to sentimentalize them as noble savages. We prefer to flatter ourselves by feeling that we can see through the performance of trust, through the claims of authority, and that’s just the way we—or, at least, the mainstream media—like it.
For we are told over and over again—like a mantra—that although 20 million people still watch the news on the three networks, “trust” will never return because between 1 and 1.5 million people watch Jon Stewart’s skewering of the news on The Daily Show. We are told by the very same mainstream media—with peculiar masochism—that college students no longer get their news from newspapers or serious TV news shows, when at no time in modern history did the majority of college students ever show much interest in serious anything, let alone the boring news. Reading the paper or watching the news is part of a routine, and routine comes with age.
If trust ever did return to the news on a Cronkite scale, the media themselves would run it out of town.
Lee Siegel has written about culture and politics and is the author of three books: Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination; Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television; and, most recently, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. In 2002, he received a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Lee Siegel has written about culture and politics and is the author of three books: Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination; Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television; and, most recently, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. In 2002, he received a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
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Lee Siegel has written about culture and politics and is the author of three books: Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination; Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television; and, most recently, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. In 2002, he received a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
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Lee Siegel has written about culture and politics and is the author of three books: Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination; Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television; and, most recently, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. In 2002, he received a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
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Lee Siegel has written about culture and politics and is the author of three books: Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination; Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television; and, most recently, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. In 2002, he received a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
But this circuitous argument about what an act and what is not an act is ridiculous.
We always believe something. Horribly enough today it is not as much the talking head news shows as it used to be. Instead it's the big "makeover" shows -- Bridezillas and all the home improvement reality crap. In fact, we LOVE to believe that the UNreality of Reality TV is real.
Haven't we gotten nuttier about the media we watch? I think so. Yes, back int the day we took the MSM for face value. News was what they told us it was. But isn't that a saner style of delusion than what we have now?
And BTW, the big difference between Cronkite and all the rest of the glitzy heads on TV serving up "news" is that Cronkite was an actual newsman for decades before he got in front of the camera. It is a person's experiences and what that person respects that makes the truth of that person. Walter Cronkite was an excellent journalist and a great anchor.
We are poorer for the fact that we no longer have real broadcast journalists.
Olbermann and O'Reilly, or rather cable "news", are not news. They are entertainment.
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I beg to differ that O'Reilly is entertainment - my head explodes if I watch him for more than a few minutes.
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Stewart is a comedienne. Cronkite was a real newsman, though wonder if he would be so popular today? The Brits have a term for the folks presenting the news today. It is 'presenter'.
they're called news readers in Australia
one of the best was Mary Kostakidis
it appears Rachel Maddow is emulating her appearance style...
the reason he was trusted was that he looked like Walt Disney.
WC tried very hard to be nonpartisan and fair. He didn't succumb to trying to be celebrated. He didn't emote for the sake of ratings or critical acclaim. He tried to report what was meaningful and didn't hype any particular point of view. He was a great American. Sic transit gloria mundi. George Patton
This is the most perceptive piece of Siegel's I have read. Cronkite was a limousine liberal who play-acted at giving us the news straight down the middle. The clowns today give us want they think we want. It's more honest.
Television news has changed since the days of WC. It used to be that the news department wasn't a profit center. Reporters of all types (as opposed to news readers or commentators) populated the news division and worked to actually investigate/report on what was happening and let the chips fall where they may. Now the news departments have to turn a profit and they dare not offend the company owners, such as GE or Disney and they are afraid to ask tough questions of the pols because of fear of losing access (always an issue), but today it seems worse. International coverage is terrible because the bureaus in many cases have been closed because they cost so much to keep open. Cable "news" is often the worst of the worst. Fox News, which is just a propaganda arm of the right wing, is in part designed to create mistrust/doubt of the media among news consumers. Even PBS is contaminated by advertising these days. There is no longer a pure public news entity. If you want to know what is really going on you have to dig and consume many different sources for a clearer picture to come into view.
Don't kid yourself. PBS is as much to the left as Fox is to the right. The "talent" like Jim Lehrer speak in a modulated tone of voice so you think you're getting an honest report. Putting a weenie like David Brooks on to represent the conservative point of view is a dead giveaway.
You're kidding yourself now. If David Brooks is a weenie, what do you call Fox's token liberal, Juan Williams? Liberals could just as easily complain that the NewsHour features Mark Shields!
The news today is about ratings, entertainment, ratings, political bias, and ratings.
Well said.
Comparing Cronkite and the news of his era with todays 24 hour news cycle is a bit of an apples and oranges situation. Walter Cronkite reported the news. No spin, no opinions. He only had 15 minutes to do it as an anchor at first and later expanded to 30 minutes. Now, even with all of the news outlets, you have to sift through the B.S. to find the actual news. It's all opinion, conjecture, and in some cases fear mongering. If I have the news on, and the comentator says "here representing the left is so n so, and here representing the right is so n so", I change the channel. I already know what each side is going to say and I don't really have time for the B.S.
The fact is, I feel sorry for folks who have to get their fix from one particular commentator or one particular network. I seems as if they tune in to find out what their opinion should be. Difficult as it is, seek out the actual news and form your own opinions. If you can't I'm sure the news networks have plenty of time to form your opinions for you. Where's Walter Cronkite when we need him?
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Hopefully you aren't crowing about Couric asking Palin questions -- that my 4yr old niece could answer.
note to america: you are not the *world*
this is a minor readjustment to make to your worldview which would be highly beneficial for everyone on the planet.
TV was different when Walter got started, because TV was relatively new. There was no class of professional TV news anchors. So they often put ACTUAL REPORTERS on TV. The folks on TV today are just copies of copies of copies, growing fainter and weaker with each generation.
Cronkite had a rich ,deep tone to his voice that also projected kindness. Now most reporters sound angry to me. Some on Fox sound really bitchy You can see the anger in the eyes..The kindness comes from the heart.You cannot teach that.
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Why the World Trusted Walter
ok
Why I Don't Trust Siegel
he doesn't have his facts right
Fine, then just stop watching the news altogether. If you don't have your own damn internal b.s. editor, you might just deserve being deceived. Siegel makes it sound like we have no free will to chose to accept "the way it is" or to just say, "Hmm, clever of Walter to come up with that gimmicky sign-off at the end of his delivery."
For cryin' out loud, does everything have to be an indictment of self-delusion?
comparing jon stewart & walter cronkite is patently absurd. the author reduces cronkite to a 'performer' of the news, & the telling of JFK's death as measured for its affect on his audience. that is cynical & ridiculous. i watched this as a child & wept. I wept again when he told the nation the MLK jr. had been slaughtered.Mr. Siegel is exploiting the death of a great man to score points. shame on him.
Sharp piece.
I would contend we are much, much better off today to know that what we hear and, increasingly less, read is likely biased, distorted or not to be trust. Yet you make a good point about mindless cynicism--it, too, is destructive.
In the end, though, ignorance is a greater evil than cynicism. I'm happy the public knows Couric and company shamelessly lie. That the knowledge can become on a personal level the self-parody of a Keith Olbermann is not too great a price.
Thank you.
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