I Miss You Walter

I watch the news every night and almost every night I am disappointed by what news has become. Yesterday it was too much royal baby. I won't relive yesterday's post but really for us it isn't news. Being King of England used to mean something. Now it is basically a ceremonial title. Let the British get all excited about it.

The story that got me pissed off was this one.

Beyonce was performing at a concert and her hair got caught in a fan. The intrepid report Diane Sawyer was quick to tell us that  Beyonce was the consumate professional and continued to sing while stage hands freed her from the fan. Sorry folks but that is not news. If the fan had pulled her in and chopped her into Beyonce head cheese, then that is news. If the fan she had been pulled into was Jeffrey Dalhmer or Ted Bundy that is news.

 

I  miss this guy.

 

I grew up watching Walter deliver us the news every evening. It wasn't about celebrities getting hair caught in fans. It was about civil rights, what was happening in Congress, race riots, the war in Vietnam, the shootings at Kent State, and a hundred other things that were real news. We look around at a world that is increasingly in chaos. Unrest in the middle east, banks that were too big to fail in 2008 that are even bigger now, troops who continue to fight in Afghanistan, NSA domestic spying, Edward Snowden.... The news- Beyonce's hair caught in fan. Royal baby goes home from hospital. DILLIGAF!!!!! In my minds eye I can see Walter Cronkite looking at the teleprompter in disgust. Briefly hanging his head in shame and as he composes himself saying: "I can't do this anymore. I won't read this shit to a public who don't want to hear the real news. I quit."

 

We don't want to hear the "real news" because it hurts. Our elected officials can't or won't work together to solve the problems our country faces. They get 30 to 60 seconds to address critical issues and the result is sound bites spewed out to gain political points with their base supporters. The news now is celebrity or someone reporting with a right or left wing agenda. We gets news reported on a slant we like instead of just facts that allow us to make an informed decision. Don't try to lead me one way or the other just lay out the facts and let me see where they take me. Immigration, the economy, foreign affairs, war are not topics that should be covered in one minute. Until we get an attention span longer than that of a gnat nothing will change.

 

So, Walter, I miss you. And that's the way it is July 24, 2013.