bloke wrote:
Thank goodness that no longer is there one talking-head T.V.-idiot whom people totally trust and believe when that person speaks.
bloke also wrote: [one of] Two reasons why the U.S. won't ever win any more wars:
Since Cronkite, the T.V. talking heads clearly don't want the U.S. to prevail in any of its military actions.
How do you reconcile these two statements? I agree, as a journalist and as a consumer of news, with the sentiments in both of them (and with other points you make here) but you state that no contemporary broadcaster has the same national influence as Cronkite and then go on to say that contemporary broadcasters have enough national influence over their audience (i.e. Americans) to prevent America from winning a hypothetical war, like you accuse Cronkite of doing. Cronkite wasn't responsible for anything beyond public perception of the Vietnam War and, even then, his criticism was extremely general in comparison to, for example, critical coverage of the Civil War.
Cronkite was/is an important figure in journalism, mostly because of his audience's tendency to perceive him as extremely professional and not because of any particular professional skills he had. That is to say, regardless of his abilities to research and report (generally things that go unseen in broadcast anchors), his delivery framed the story for consumers and marked him as credible in their eyes.
This same framing can be observed in modern broadcast anchors' coverage of war. Broadcasters want to be perceived as government watchdogs acting in their audience's best interest, rather than cheerleaders. Even those labeled "conservative" broadcasters (reporters, not commentators) frame government and military stories as if they are skeptics. For this reason, it appears to you, me, and other consumers that the T.V. talking heads don't want the U.S. to prevail in any of its military actions.
I too am grateful that no individual has ascended to Cronkite-esque authority. The superstars of cable news are the commentators (Olberman, O'Reilly, et al) and national network anchors (Jennings, Brokaw, et al) are becoming supporting acts to localized coverage (the side affects of this trend are another discussion) in many TV markets. Increasing the anonymity of reporters marginalizes some aspects of story framing. On the other hand, the consumers' trust in increasingly anonymous reporters shifts to the faceless companies who distribute content, leaving us right back where we started.
