Walter Cronkite - a real reporter!

[Image from www.popcrunch.com/]

The Media Bloodhound, Brad Johnson, has written an excellent essay on the mainstream media's tributes to Walter Cronkite. Johnson notes, poignantly, that in all their effluent "memorializing" of Mr. Cronkite, the MSM failed to point out that Cronkite was strongly opposed to the Iraq war and said so, publicly.

"Following his death last week," writes Johnson, "various network news tributes replayed footage of Cronkite's influential '68 on-air editorial" during which he declared that President Johnson and his Defense Department were wrong and that, no matter what they said, the Vietnam Was was "unwinnable."

Cronkite felt the same way about Iraq, and he felt it was his responsibility, as a reporter, to say so!

But that's only part of the story. I've come to the conclusion that one of the major problems in this country is that the MSM is owned, lock, stock and barrel by corporate entities that care not for truth but only for the bottom line. Thus, the MSM consists largely of hired quacks who waddle to the tune their owners sing.

We do not get the truth. The people in this country are given sound bites and propaganda, all of which are duly reported as "news." It's no wonder that so many continue to vote against their own best interests.

All of this comes starkly to the fore in a statement by MSM hack, David Gregory, on MSNBC (a General Electric company!) on Mary 28, 2008:

"I think there are a lot of critics who think that [in the run-up to the Iraq War] .... if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role."

"It's not our role"? How incredible is that? Whose role is it, then. And what is your role, Mr. Gregory?

The MediaBloodhound answers that with the only answer possible: The role spelled out for the media by Mr. Gregory is "public relations officer."


Please read all of this superb article here.