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Walter Kronkite was a legend, and in journalism there was no equal. Can you honestly imagine a journalist today being voted the most trusted man in America? That is almost laughable, Fox News,MSNBC, and the rest of the MSM wouldn't know journalism if it slapped them in the face.
On the other hand he may have realised what many in the military and government realised at about that time, that the North Vietnamese were ready for a war of attrition that couldn't be won by South Vietnam or by the allied forces.
No. The point is that the North Vietnamese were ready to give up after the Tet Offensive before they saw how the American News media reacted. What they saw is that, while they could not win militarily, they could win psychologically because of the way the American media were reacting. And Conrkrite was a huge part of that. He was pretty darned close to being a traitor.
Would you prefer he peddled propaganda for the government of the day?
What he did was peddle propaganda for the North Vietnamese government. The North Vietnamese were prepared to give up after the resounding defeat they'd suffered in that campaign. But when they saw how the US media responded, and Conkrite was part of that, they realized that they could exploit that. What he did was take a situation in which the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had just taken a butt-kicking and contribute to turning it into a perception on the part of the American people that the War was not "winnable." He had absolutely no clue.
no, he told the truth.
we were never going to win in viet nam because the politicians wouldn't get out of the way.
Great way to run a military: taking advise from guys who are paid to read notes every night.
I can only imagine how WWII would have turned out if Cronkite was broadcasting after we got our asses kicked at Kasserine Pass in our first time up against the Germans.
no, you can't.
fool.
"In Kansas City, he joined the United Press in 1937.[3] He became one of the top American reporters in World War II, covering battles in North Africa and Europe.[7] He was one of eight journalists selected by the United States Army Air Forces to fly bombing raids over Germany in a B-17 Flying Fortress.[12] He also landed in a glider with the 101st Airborne in Operation Market-Garden and covered the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he covered the Nuremberg trials and served as the United Press main reporter in Moscow for two years."
Walter Cronkite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
LBJ, to my knowledge, was never paid to read notes every night. you'd benefit from reading some history.
How Walter Cronkite would have reported the Battle of the Bulge if he would have used the same guidelines he did for Tet.
How Walter Cronkite would have reported the Battle of the Bulge if he would have used the same guidelines he did for Tet.
The same "guidelines"?!
Given the confused thinking as that implies, one hardly knows how to respond to it.
Are you seriously attempting to compare WWII Europe's the Battle of the Bulge to the Viet Nam Tet Offensive?
How Walter Cronkite would have reported the Battle of the Bulge if he would have used the same guidelines he did for Tet.
The same "guidelines"?!
Given the confused thinking as that implies, one hardly knows how to respond to it.
Are you seriously attempting to compare WWII Europe's the Battle of the Bulge to the Viet Nam Tet Offensive?
Great way to run a military: taking advise from guys who are paid to read notes every night.
I can only imagine how WWII would have turned out if Cronkite was broadcasting after we got our asses kicked at Kasserine Pass in our first time up against the Germans.
no, you can't.
fool.
"In Kansas City, he joined the United Press in 1937.[3] He became one of the top American reporters in World War II, covering battles in North Africa and Europe.[7] He was one of eight journalists selected by the United States Army Air Forces to fly bombing raids over Germany in a B-17 Flying Fortress.[12] He also landed in a glider with the 101st Airborne in Operation Market-Garden and covered the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he covered the Nuremberg trials and served as the United Press main reporter in Moscow for two years."
Walter Cronkite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
LBJ, to my knowledge, was never paid to read notes every night. you'd benefit from reading some history.
This is what I meant. Also, I never insulted you personally I highly recommend that you not do that again.
January 1945
Ardennes, Belgium
"We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. -- How Walter Cronkite would have reported the Battle of the Bulge if he would have used the same guidelines he did for Tet.
"The Vietcong did not win by a knockout [in the Tet Offensive], but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. . . . We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. . . .
"For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. . . . To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past" -- Walter Cronkite, CBS Evening News, February 27, 1968.
"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" -- David Gregory, MSNBC, May 28, 2008.
Picture if you will rather small room, about the size of a classroom, with about 10 or 12 reporters there in the center of the room. And in the back, and outside, some 40 military officers, all of them big time brass. It was clearly an attempt to intimidate us.
General Stilwell tried to take the intimidation a step further. He began by saying that Neil and I had bothered General Harkins and Ambassador Lodge and other VIPs, and we were not to do it again. Period.
And I stood up, my heart beating wildly -- and told him that we were not his corporals or privates, that we worked for The New York Times and UP and AP and Newsweek, not for the Department of Defense.
I said that we knew that 30 American helicopters and perhaps 150 American soldiers had gone into battle, and the American people had a right to know what happened. I went on to say that we would continue to press to go on missions and call Ambassador Lodge and General Harkins, but he could, if he chose, write to our editors telling them that we were being too aggressive, and were pushing much too hard to go into battle. That was certainly his right.
Obviously, it should be a brilliant moment in American journalism, a time of a genuine flowering of a journalistic culture . . .
But the reverse is true. Those to whom the most is given, the executives of our three networks, have steadily moved away from their greatest responsibilities, which is using their news departments to tell the American people complicated truths, not only about their own country, but about the world around us. . . .
Somewhere in there, gradually, but systematically, there has been an abdication of responsibility within the profession, most particularly in the networks. . . . So, if we look at the media today, we ought to be aware not just of what we are getting, but what we are not getting; the difference between what is authentic and what is inauthentic in contemporary American life and in the world, with a warning that in this celebrity culture, the forces of the inauthentic are becoming more powerful all the time.
Lewis Lapham isnt happy with political journalism today. There was a time in America when the press and the government were on opposite sides of the field, he said at a premiere party for Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson on June 25. The press was supposed to speak on behalf of the people. The new tradition is that the press speaks on behalf of the government. An example? Tim Russert was a spokesman for power, wealth, and privilege, Lapham said. Thats why 1,000 people came to his memorial service. Because essentially he was a shill for the government. It didnt matter whether it was Democratic or Republican. It was for the status quo. What about Russerts rep for catching pols in lies? That was bullshit, he said. Thompson and Russert were two opposite poles.
Long ago in the days before journalists became celebrities, their enterprise was reviled and poorly paid, and it was understood by working newspapermen that the presence of more than two people at their funeral could be taken as a sign that they had disgraced the profession.
On television the voices of dissent cant be counted upon to match the studio drapes or serve as tasteful lead-ins to the advertisements for Pantene Pro-V and the U.S. Marine Corps. What we now know as the news media serve at the pleasure of the corporate sponsor, their purpose not to tell truth to the powerful but to transmit lies to the powerless. Like Russert, who served his apprenticeship as an aide-de-camp to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, most of the prominent figures in the Washington press corps (among them George Stephanopoulos, Bob Woodward, and Karl Rove) began their careers as bagmen in the employ of a dissembling politician or a corrupt legislature. Regarding themselves as de facto members of government, enabling and codependent, their point of view is that of the countrys landlords, their practice equivalent to what is known among Wall Street stock-market touts as securitizing the junk. When requesting explanations from secretaries of defense or congressional committee chairmen, they do so with the understanding that any explanation will do. Explain to us, my captain, why the United States must go to war in Iraq, and we will relay the message to the American people in words of one or two syllables. Instruct us, Mr. Chairman, in the reasons why K-Street lobbyists produce the paper that Congress passes into law, and we will show that the reasons are healthy, wealthy, and wise. Do not be frightened by our pretending to be suspicious or scornful. Together with the television camera that sees but doesnt think, were here to watch, to fall in with your whims and approve your injustices. Give us this day our daily bread, and we will hide your vices in the rosebushes of salacious gossip and clothe your crimes in the aura of inspirational anecdote.
What do I regret? Well, I regret that in our attempt to establish some standards, we didn't make them stick. We couldn't find a way to pass them on to another generation.
Glenn Greenwald has a nice article today that demonstrates the difference between what Cronkite did and what modern "journalists" do, the phony and substance-free memorials going on in the media right now, and why it was Cronkite's bravery, integrity, and willingness to speak truth to power that made him "the most trusted man in America":
Celebrating Cronkite while ignoring what he did
RIP, a good man and a great journalist.
