I always thought they looked a little alike: Walter Cronkite and Arthur Fiedler.
But I trusted Arthur Fiedler's music a lot more than I trusted Walter Cronkite's news.
Yeah...I know that's heresy.
Walter was supposed to be some kind of "daddy" figure to Americans.
I didn't see him that way.
When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to St. Augustine for one of his peaceful marches and sit-ins at the local restaurants, I joined with him, believing in what he was doing and his methods of doing it.
That day, Dr. King was arrested.
That night on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, they carried the story of the sit-down and the arrest.
But the pictures they showed of Dr. King's arrest were of him being arrested in another city, yet CBS failed to make that clear.
Since I was present at his arrest, I knew immediately that the pictures on TV did not match the story they were telling.
For the first time in my life I began to realize that not everything you hear or SEE on TV news is real. I learned that it can be fixed, altered, or just plain used to lie.
As I began to pay closer attention, I became more and more convinced that very little of TV news is objective or even true.
For instance, when there is an event held by liberals that is sparsely attended, but the MSM wants you to think lots of people were there, they simply draw in close on the "crowd," proclaim that many people attended and leave your imagination to fill in the rest of the picture.
On the other hand, when there is a conservative event at which there may be thousands, MSM will find a pocket of people that are somewhat spread apart and declare, "Not as many people as expected turned up."
You, then, accept that as truth, not necessarily because you are evil, but because the power of suggestion, particularly suggestion that suggests something that SEEMS corroborated by the pictures, is very strong, indeed.
This happens on every national newscast every evening, usually without your awareness.
Now, both Walter Cronkite and Arthur Fiedler are no longer with us.
I really miss one of them.
9 comments:
Cronkite definitely betrayed the trust America had in him.
I hadn't heard that Arthur Fielder died. I remember on the 200th Anniversary of America when he conducted the Pops playing
'Stars and Stripes Forever.' People went wild. It was an exciting time, with fireworks, speeches and tall ships.
I led a sheltered life, I guess. Until the day that Cronkite died I never knew that he was a bad guy. Makes me wonder what else I don't know.
Cronkite was a liberal who at least went places and checked things out for himself. He didn't just rely on what others told him.
I really can't fault a liberal who made an effort even though his biases were strong.
Liberals tend to want their emotional needs met as a first order not seeming to care that doing so may damn their meeting of their future needs.
Sue: Arthur Fiedler died in 1979. The Boston Pops Orchestra, a sub orchestra of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, is now conducted by Keith Lockhart.
Cronkite is the guy who proclaimed the Viet Nam War lost after a pretty successful Tet Offensive.
Like when Harry Reid proclaimed the Iraq War lost, resulting in a great number of U.S. troops being killed and injured, Cronkite was instrumental in getting us out of a war we could have and should have won.
Duh. I didn't realize that A. Fieldler died so long ago.
I have to admit that I don't consider VN a winning war.
I have to give Cronkite credit for reining in his liberal leanings while he anchored the CBS news. It was after he left the job that he allowed his liberal beliefs to run free, and that was his right. And, stating that the Vietnam War would end in a stalemate was correct. But he was wrong in editorializing during a hard news broadcast. And once it was said, he should have pinned the blame where it belonged -- with the LBJ administration, which was guilty of criminal malfeasance in its conduct of the war.
CBS News was once a noble organization. Its decent into corruption and irrelevance began the day Dan Rather replaced Cronkite in the anchor seat. Cronkite always resented being forced out and thought Rather was a lightweight, who wasn't up for the job. He was right in that too.
LR - good comments
LR: Yours is a common conception of Cronkite, and I don't so much blame him for some of his reporting, but the network. However, once a person lies or misrepresents something to me, I require him(her) to provide me with a list of things that I
CAN trust him about as well as a list of things I CAN'T.
Joe - Interesting you would mention lying. I just wrote a post on it. (second one down.)
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