House of Eratosthenes

We haven’t clambered on to the “Give Walter a Proper Send-Off” bandwagon for a number of reasons. One of these is that the spate of celebrity exits has saddled us with something of a backlog, assuming we want to get into that. We haven’t caught up with Michael Jackson just yet, and we probably never will.

Another reason is that Cronkite deserves a footnote. In one career he managed to epitomize what teevee journalism should, and should not, be. It would be callous to neglect his many contributions, but it would be irresponsible to mention only those, and leave unmentioned the profound injury he dealt to the profession.

James Taranto, we think, has found the appropriate balance:

Being a “straight shooter” means something quite different to a news reporter than an editorialist. The distinction is analogous to that between a judge deciding a case and a lawyer arguing one, or between an umpire and a coach. No one doubts that Cronkite was sincere in his opinion about Vietnam, and the argument over its merits is beyond the scope of today’s column. As a reporter, however, he had a duty to stick to the facts and leave opinions to others.

He almost always lived up to that duty, but the one time he manifestly fell short, it ended up having great and baneful consequences. Do you remember a few years ago when one of the networks declared the conflict in Iraq to be a “civil war”? Neither does anyone else. It was a transparent attempt to do to Iraq what Cronkite had done to Vietnam. It failed because viewers no longer trust newsmen the way they did in 1968. And it is a vicious circle: Without the authority that derives from that trust, reporters get careless about objectivity, weakening the audience’s trust even further.

The glory of Walter Cronkite’s career is that he did more than anyone to earn his viewers’ trust and establish his profession’s authority. The tragedy is that he also did more than anyone else to undermine them.

It was the late 1960’s. The baby-boomers were old enough to consume information and pay attention to what those in authority said about things; but still young enough to know everything. Because of this, everyone who was in any position to be watched, caught a raging case of GoodPerson Fever^TM.

And as a direct result of that, as one rounds up the very worst authoritarian decisions made in the history of the United States, a disproportionate representation of them come from the 1960’s.

It is often said that a strong character has to do with doing the right thing when no one is watching. I’ve often noticed that when a vast, mind-blowing number of people are watching, that’s a good test of strong character as well. A man who has it will do things that make just as much sense as whatever he’d be doing in solitude; and a man of weak character will do something that looks just snazzy, but in substance, is unbelievably stupid.

It is the desire for irony, I think, that causes all the trouble. Weak character means your conduct is affected by the size of the audience and who’s in it, and to that crew this seems to be a consciously desirable thing. You should be doing something different to acknowledge the watchers. Your reality should change. And so, if any available option makes too much sense, it’s eliminated from the running; what is ultimately selected is silly and surreal. By design.

A great example of this is when Vice President Biden insisted, last week, that our country has to spend lots of money to avoid going broke. He came up with something nonsensical because that’s exactly what he was trying to find. That’s why I cited the subtle difference between bullshitting and lying, and announced that Biden’s bullshitting was so impressive as to push him across that line. Bullshitting, by definition, means apathy with regard to what is & isn’t true. It means carelessness. And you can’t maintain that while spouting the impressive nonsense that was coming out of Biden’s mouth.

What happened to Walter Cronkite is something of a thinner foreshadowing of this. I think in Cronkite’s heart of hearts, he thought what he was saying was morally virtuous. But with a less dazzling spotlight shining on him, he would have figured out that his opinion should have been checked at the door. He did not so decide; Taranto is right, this was a tragedy for the country as well as for the man. Cronkite was blinded by the light — blinded the way small men sometimes are, when they’re placed in a position that is bigger than they are. And Cronkite’s position was bigger than he was. Electronic news had scaled a mountain and reached a high pinnacle of influence, one that had never before been reached in our society. Cronkite found himself at the pinnacle of that pinnacle. All that glory was too much. He became intoxicated on the elixir, and jettisoned a lifetime of journalistic ethics in the blink of an eye.

Forty years on, the rest of us are still paying the price for it. From here on out, Cronkite himself won’t have to.

[…] No Higher Office in Sight Taranto Eulogizes Cronkite Home Renovation Shows The Trouble with Harry No Such Thing as Work-Life Balance His Blank Slate V […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 07/21/2009 @ 06:53
I also think that Cronkite, blissfully unaware, was heavily influence by the concurrent rise of the New Journalism, as exemplified by Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson, wherein the story was more about the writer than the event. Funny the first time, but awfully tedious as time wore (and wore and wore) on.

You’re right about the ’60s. Imagine what it was like to those of us watching the Boomy Babers take over the culture from close range.
- rob | 07/21/2009 @ 08:39
I didn’t “do” Cronkite’s passing at EIP, either. The reason: I never forgave Cronkite for his post-Tet broadcast… it’s a major manifestation of that ol’ military saw about one “aw shit” canceling ten “attaboys.” I had skin in that game and like a lot of other guys my age I lost a couple of friends in that war. I’ll not reopen old wounds any further than this.

Still and even: I will acknowledge Cronkite’s reportage and his career… up to Tet… was the Gold Standard for American newsmen.

Rob: HST was my HERO once upon a time, specifically during his days as a stringer/reporter/auteur for Rolling Stone. His series “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail” (about the ’72 election) was just magnificent… in the context of the times, which includes the fact I was heavily into moonbat politics back then.
- bpenni | 07/21/2009 @ 10:28
Interesting question just sank into my li’l head just now…in a parallel universe in which Cronkite upheld his own ideals from cradle to grave, just how famous would he be right about now?

Put another way, did he become a household name by earning this trust over the many years pre-Tet, or by that hairpin turn at which point he betrayed it?

My money says, if he were consistently faithful to his principles, many among us would never have heard of him. He’d be famous at the moment — but at the end of it, he’d just be another guy who used to sit behind the desk and do the news. Like an anchorman at a local station.
- mkfreeberg | 07/21/2009 @ 10:44
I kinda-sorta disagree with you on Cronkite/Tet. I think he made his reputation with the TeeVee Generation (read as: boomers) with his JFK assassination coverage. He became a fixture with CBS News shortly after that. It ain’t for nothing that LBJ said “if I’ve lost Cronkite I’ve lost America,” as Uncle Walter was by then “the most trusted man in America.” (The LBJ thing ain’t a direct quote, but you get my drift)
- bpenni | 07/22/2009 @ 12:05

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Taranto Eulogizes CronkiteTuesday, July 21st, 2009

Taranto Eulogizes Cronkite
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009