And That's The Way It Is

Lost (not that they're going to bring it up) in the well-deserved encomia over Cronkite's passing is how tectonically the media have shifted since his day. With Cronkite, you never got the feeling that you were being pushed or led around by someone who wanted to be a high-paid star and party with the people he covered (though of course, in his later emeritus status, he did just that, but at least he earned it and the potential conflict of interest was gone by then). Although I am half-expecting LaToya Jackson to show up and claim that Cronkite was murdered for his money by scheming doctors. Interesting times.

Cronkite just showed up and did his job, reliably and without attempting to convey any unearned gravitas or self-importance. That was always projected on him by others, by people who self-actualize in public "shared grief" rituals, people who tend to memorialize the famous dead by memorializing where they happened to be when so-and-so died, people who prefer "events" to "facts" and newsreaders to news. And the media we have, with its vested interests, organizational structures, preening celebrity anchors, cage-match idiot pseudo-analysts, and dermis-deep coverage, is the ideal media for just such people. Neil Postman, as I've said before, was an optimist.

To think of Cronkite and what he brought to the craft of journalism is, unfortunately, also to be reminded that the landscape now mostly consists of jokers like David Gregory, smugly hypocritical, much more deeply committed to the branding side of journalism than the, you know, journalism side. It's a sad thing. Gregory knows he's there to move product, to convince his guests and audience that his is the go-to show for ass-covering pols and sound-bite conflict, so that they'll sit through ads for vehicles and pharmaceuticals they don't need. Plus, John McCain the third Sunday of every month. Talk about your winning formula.

On some level, Cronkite no doubt understood the business he operated in, but the difference is that there's no goddamned way he'd have ever gotten on a stage and done a disco shuffle behind a rapping Karl Rove. They can roll out all the collegial "Uncle Walter" schtick they want, but they know perfectly well that they've let him down, and that what they do is not what he did.