Trust, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #127
July 20, 2009 Mike Gold 3 Comments
When a 92-year old legend dies, it’s disingenuous to say it came as a shock. In the case of Walter Cronkite, it was also disingenuous to say it marked the passing of an era. That era passed a long, long time ago.
Nobody bitched about it more loudly than Mr. Cronkite himself. From the day he was forced into retirement until the day the blood vessels to his well-exercised brain started to collapse, Cronkite complained bitterly about the rapid deterioration of a vital communications medium that he led the way in building. Instead of reporting the news, isolating opinion from fact, prioritizing events by its potential impact upon the audience instead of simply selling gossip and paranoia… those sing-along days are lost to us forever.
The news media did wall-to-wall coverage of the death of a deviate pop star while, at the same time, ignoring truly vital stories. The Iranian government finally launched their crackdown on election protesters. The fight for universal health care reached critical mass, as did the battle to limit greenhouse gases. There was a train crash in Washington DC that left nine dead. The planet Mongo crashed into the Earth and billions of people died, and all we knew was that Michael Jackson died and, oh yeah, some Republican presidential candidate got caught with his dick in some foreign snatch.
The media didn’t even use the opportunity to report on Jackson’s Vitiligo affliction, one that affects many black people. It could have been an educational experience, even a fund-raising experience. Instead we found out what an old washed up movie star thought about losing her best-known idol. It’s sad that Walter lived to see all that; hopefully, he was past understanding. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ll bet that if you’re not black and not in an integrated family, you probably never even heard of Vitiligo.
These whorish choices are exactly what the most trusted man in America was complaining about. If you weren’t watching him on PBS or Discovery, you didn’t hear much about it. The media do not like covering themselves. I wonder why.
It’s fair to suggest we will never bestow that much trust in any future newsperson. The reason is simple: you don’t think of the concept of “trust” when all you get in the way of news is gossip, shark attacks and mindless paranoia. If you want to actually know the news, well, damn, go buy a good newspaper.
Oh. Wait. I forgot. They’re all going out of business.
If Walter Cronkite came back from the grave today, he’d be better off selling buggy whips.
Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking bizarro music and blather show starts up Sundays at 7:00 PM Eastern on www.getthepointradio.com , replayed the following Thursdays at 10:00 PM Eastern. Likewise, his Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind rants pop up every on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday exclusively at www.getthepointradio.com . The regular Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind rants continue every Monday and Friday on The Point podcasts, available right here at www.michaeldavisworld.com , as well as at www.comicmix.com, www.getthepointradio.com, www.zzcomics.com, and www.ravenwolfstudios.com. You can subscribe to The Point podcasts at iTunes by searching under “The Point Radio.”
Gold is also a regular contributor to www comicmix.com, and edits their online comic book content. Check out the all-new GrimJack: The Manx Cat #3, and Jon Sable Freelane: Ashes of Eden #1, now being solicited in the IDW Publishing section of this month’s Diamond catalog.
Marc Alan Fishman
July 20, 2009 - 12:25 pm
My mom was a news junkie. She grew up on Mr. Cronkite, and was always in awe of his poise, his class, and his honesty. When I was growing up, I met Bill Kurtis, an anchor one could argue was styling himself just a bit, in the shadow of Walter Cronkite. My mother called Bill Kurtis “about the best anchor Chicago would see… speaking to my generation specifically. But as you and more importantly Mr. Cronkite made abundantly clear… the face of “news” is a plastic one.
When my generation trusts a comedy show spoof of nightly news as the “best” forum to stay informed… we know the era worth fighting for is dead and 6 feet under. Papers and news media outlets are funded and built to spectacles.
When my generation gets it’s information in 24 hour news-cycles… always recycled, always devoid of real facts and debated opinion… we don’t have a benchmark of what “real news” was. My mom showed me tapes of Walter Cronkite when I was a kid. I know what “news” was.
And even though he just left us so recently… Mr. Cronkite’s legacy has been coughing, riggling, and dying a slow death for nearly a decade or more. I can only hope if there is some reward awaiting us in the afterlife… Walter will be sitting at a desk, telling us the way it is.
Mike Gold
July 20, 2009 - 4:05 pm
40 years ago Bill Kurtis covered the Conspiracy (Chicago 7) Trial for CBS, and I got to know him some. He did, by far, the best coverage of any of the broadcasters –no agenda, just straightforward reporting. He’s a trained lawyer; that probably helped. When WBBM-TV wanted him back from the network, they offered him his own separate production team to produce documentaries (as well as a shitload of money, I’m sure). He won awards for breaking the Agent Orange story, and many others. Instead of growing old and reading copy on the air, he continued to run his own independent production company and he makes a lot of documentaries for sundry cable channels.
And a few rather clever commercials.
Reg
July 21, 2009 - 12:40 pm
Respect for this drop, Mike. Completely co-sign that truly critical news pretty much disappeared once Michael and Turgid Terry hit the cycles.
If one believed in conspiracies, the timing was at the most opportune time to hide that which was in plain sight.
And yes…Walter’s gravitas and professionalism made him trustworthy… and no matter the weightiness of the matter, it felt better hearing it from him.