Of course it’s sad when anyone dies, despite the fact that it’s an inevitability, but when a media type dies, notice how their world (thus ours) comes to a stop?
CNN: Statement from CBS
ABC: Legendary Newsman Dies at Age 92
NBC NY: Friends, Colleagues Share Memories
Fox: Remembering Walter Cronkite
NY Times: Iconic Anchorman, Dies at 92
Al Jazeera: End of an era
BBC: The voice that spoke for America
And of course, the president wouldn’t be upstaged…
Recently, we’ve had several opportunities to witness the media masturbation.
In 2005 Peter Jennings died. In 2006 ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq, as was CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier. In 2008, Tim Russert passed.
In almost all of these cases, all other equally important stories were promptly buried by fellow journalist retrospectives and video tributes. Rival networks all offered their sympathies and comments because we’re talking about one of them.
Let’s not forget, we have soldiers (young and old) dying in The Middle East. As the Commander-in-Chief is their preferred, it’s even easier for them to preempt real news for the glorification of one of their own.
The elite media class has always thought themselves better than the clueless they inform, but it really becomes evident when they lionize themselves for days following an important passing.
And let’s not leave the politics out of this. In 2008, both Tony Snow and William F. Buckley died, and both received a fraction of the media attention (outside of the conservative media), so it would appear some media types were considered less worthy of eulogies than others.
Bob, I’m glad you mentioned Snow. I didn’t know he’d died until about a week later when some blogger made cracks about his death.
now that I think about it, I remember when David Bloom sadly died a few years back. Indeed everything came to a halt that day and for the next few days more or less
The TED offensive?
right
I LIKE THIS ONE:
http://www.theodoresworld.net/
During the Vietnam War through he was responsible for a massive disinformation campaign to turn America’s victories into defeats (the Ted Offensive) and fabricate out of whole cloth Viet Cong victories that were used to demoralize the American public. He should be remembered as one of the great traitors of American history, right there along with Benedict Arnold.
He was worse than Arnold because he was lying to so many more people. Good riddance to him. He can spend his time now in hell with Robert Strange McNamara.
Walter Cronkite betrayed every one of the 58,000 men who died in Viet Nam. He betrayed every man and woman wounded in Viet Nam. He betrayed every man and woman who served in Viet Nam and he betrayed the people of South Vietnam. He stabbed the Viet Nam vet in the back.
Walter Cronkite went to Hue during Tet ’68 fairly late in the battle and saw what he wanted to see, but refused an invitation to see the massacred the communists had killed and tossed in a mass grave. He chose the side of the enemy and his reports of lies effected his buddy LBJ in his decision making as well.
When LBJ heard of Cronkite’s comments, he was quoted as saying, “That’s it. If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”
Our American heroes fought hard, were maimed and died in that offensive and becuase of Cronkite.
Cronkite was a self serving bastard.
In January 2006, Cronkite said his statement on Vietnam was his proudest moment. When asked then if he would give the same advice on Iraq, Cronkite didn’t hesitate to say “Yes.”….article HERE….Cronkite’s Vietnam moment: ‘US must leave Iraq’
Walter Cronkite on the Tet Offensive
“Report from Vietnam,” Walter Cronkite Broadcast, February 27, 1968.
Tonight, back in more familiar surroundings in New York, we’d like to sum up our findings in Vietnam, an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective. Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I’m not sure. The Vietcong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. Another standoff may be coming in the big battles expected south of the Demilitarized Zone. Khesanh could well fall, with a terrible loss in American lives, prestige and morale, and this is a tragedy of our stubbornness there; but the bastion no longer is a key to the rest of the northern regions, and it is doubtful that the American forces can be defeated across the breadth of the DMZ with any substantial loss of ground. Another standoff. On the political front, past performance gives no confidence that the Vietnamese government can cope with its problems, now compounded by the attack on the cities. It may not fall, it may hold on, but it probably won’t show the dynamic qualities demanded of this young nation. Another standoff.
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. They may be right, that Hanoi’s winter-spring offensive has been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that-negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer’s almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.
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. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy’s intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.
This is Walter Cronkite. Good night.
Or this one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Speicher
Or this one?
Anybody seen much about this man?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g8-DEMtAE9q4i4ySQ0eV_qZefmRQD99H6VHO0
It really is sad to see who the media glorifies and who they casually “forget.”
For those of you unaware, since it didn’t appear in any major news outlet, “Shifty” Powers, from Easy Company, 506th PIR during WWII, died a month ago today. He was a true American hero.
http://www.tricities.com/tri/news/local/article/band_of_brothers_hero_darrell_swifty_powers_dies/25556/