The Godfather of liberal media bias.

Let me say upfront that I was raised to admire the entire concept of the "Southern gentleman" - ready at an instance notice to pull out both a chair for a lady, and a weapon to defend my property ... you know the type. And as such I find it in poor taste to speak ill of the dead, with the reasonable exception of those whom are clearly "evil" - Hitler, Stalin, et al. And while I am not prepared to break that societal rule of thumb, I'm certainly about to bend it.

I am quite tired of those demanding I celebrate as "special", bordering on the immortal, peoples whom are the "first" at what they do. As an American, and avid news consumer, I was treated to non stop coverage of Michael Jackson upon his passing. He was "the first" to break all race barriers and touch every creed and color with his talent. He was the first black to have a #1 song X amount of weeks in a row, the first hit MTV video with Thriller, and so on. And even before that I was lectured nearly nightly in the news media that a lowly Illinois state Senator, of whom I had never heard, was the end all, save all for the preservation of the American dream. And he was so based solely on being "the first" black presidential candidate. Everything he does is the "first" this, the first that. And it continues with his choice for the highest court in our land, the "first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice." Now be it Micheal Jackson, or Barak Obama, or Sonia Sotomayor, I have no quarrel with my neighbor all the way down to my news broadcaster (and yes "all the way down" versus "up" was on purpose) pointing out that Mister or Misses "X" is the "first" to accomplish A, B or C. What DOES bother me tremendously is that I am ALSO told, as I bare witness to its practice all around me, that I am to have confidence in, believe in, assume the unquestionable ability of each of these people whom are the "first" simply BECAUSE they are the first. I ask you, does anyone contend that Jackie Robinson was the finest ball player in the history of sport simply because he was the first black man in pro baseball? See in sports, unlike politics, the judiciary, entertainers, news broadcasters, etc, you can't fudge being the "best." Your stats either put you in that category or they do not. And that leads me to the postmortem coverage of Mr. Walter Cronkite ...

I am inundated on FOX, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, and on and on (I give CBS a pass for such coverage for obvious reasons), with the FACT, not guesswork, not opinion, not editorializing, but FACT that Walter Cronkite was the godfather of legitimate journalism, the most trusted man in America, the pinnacle of his profession. Godlike status has been imposed upon him, as if the entire American experience from the Boston Tea Party to the moon landing was all somehow existentially narrated by Cronkite, reminiscent of a Morgan Freeman documentary. And ALL because he was the first network television news anchor (a new innovation at his time) of any note.

So I ask, really? He was really that magnificent ay? To be near him was to be blinded by the awe inspiring omnipotent glory of his eternal rays of trail blazing sun huh?

Ok.

Here's another take.

He made legitimate the insertion of personal biases into mainstream journalism for all time and memorial, polluting the pool of all future TV anchors the nation over, introducing a journalistic stain no home remedy solution could ever remove. HE set the first, the best, most clear example of bias posing as reporting on television in the history of the invention. How's that?

Now I have no quarrel with his emotional reporting of the Kennedy assassination, nor his cheer leading the space program; but in what defined his career, Vietnam, he is responsible more than any other single individual for causing the tide of opinion in America to turn against the Vietnam War. Even today it would be considered breathtaking bias for a network anchor to flatly announce: "It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of [insert conflict] is to end in a stalemate. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could...", which is how he (in)famously described the Vietnam War. In addition his reporting of the Tet Offensive stands as the beaming light, the Mecca of journalistic bias and misreporting that all anchors whom followed would go on a pilgrimage to worship at. "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." YES, the offensive caught the average American watching at home (and even our forces) off guard, but that precise instance is when we need straight reporting of the facts - to set misperceptions straight. Either he did know that it ended up a catastrophic loss (in both KIA numbers and territory gained) for the NVC and chose not to report it, or he didn't even bother to uncover what was blatantly obvious to Sr. US Military personnel by the Offensive's end, of whom he undoubtedly had preferential access to - either way what was arguably one of the biggest stories of his career (along with JFK & the Moon landing), one in which thousands of lives hung in the balance, he got it wrong, and it was due to a personal bias. He went on to describe Carter as the "smartest" man to ever hold the office of President. In retirement railed against Reagan's nuclear ambitions, Grenada, and Libya, knowing those comments would affect the coverage of his successors. And yet I was told non stop for 3 days that he is "THE" example of what a journalist should be. That HE is the beacon of integrity Columbia J' school freshman should seek to emulate. That HIS version of journalism is to be extolled as the untouchable example of trustworthiness.

I beg to differ.

See in the real world, where we don't look to celebrities for an example of heroism, where political correctness is not substituted for plain truth and common sense, we feel the following: Judge Sotomayor is a blatant racist. Our President is a civic novice hooked on a Pollyannic ideology so far out of his league that he is half laughable, half dangerous. Micheal Jackson's pants were more than likely always so short because they weren't his. And Walter Cronkite legitimized journalistic bias, enabling all of his professional offspring from Rather to Brokaw to wreak havoc across the network landscape, forever scrubbing the word "reporter" from their profession.

And THAT'S the way it is America . . . goodnight.