I'm going to date myself a bit, here. When I was a wee lad growing up in a far-suburb of Chicago, "CBS Evening News" anchor Walter Cronkite was, from 1962 to 1981, the gold standard of television journalism.
Whether it was a typical news day, covering historical events like the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, and Democrat presidential nominee Robert F. Kennedy, and America's 1969 moon landing, tens of millions of Americans tuned into CBS News to watch "Uncle Walter" cover it — and hear what he had to say..
But here's the thing — which is inconceivable in today's so-called "mainstream" media:
Those tens of millions of faithful viewers had no idea about Cronkite's political views or party affiliation. Even more remarkable, in contrast to today's left-"leaning" media outlets, only after Mr. Cronkite's retirement did we learn he was a Democrat.
Yes, today's radicalized Democrats bear little if any resemblance to the Democrats of Cronkite's era, but as the CBS News anchorman learned early on, and practiced throughout his remarkable career, journalists who report the news shouldn't engage in punditry in favor of one side or the other — whether outright, or in what they choose to report or not.
Yes, it was in a land far away from today's reality, which brings us to that reality and how it continues to destroy the public's trust in "mainstream" media, not to mention the likes of also-rans, CNN and MSNBC.
In the latest Gallup poll, the results of which were published on Thursday, the media hit another all-time low. How bad was it? Let's put it this way: the only institution less trusted the American public is the U.S. Congress, based on the survey's results. Here's how Gallup summed it up:
About two-thirds of Americans in the 1970s trusted the “mass media — such as newspapers, TV and radio” either “a great deal” or “a fair amount” to “[report] the news fully, accurately and fairly.” By the next measurement in 1997, confidence had fallen to 53%, and it has gradually trended downward since 2003. Americans are now divided into rough thirds, with 31% trusting the media a great deal or a fair amount, 33% saying they do “not [trust it] very much,” and 36%, up from 6% in 1972, saying they have no trust at all in it.
Anyone who pays a modicum of attention to political polls — or watches CNN or Fox News — knows that we've reached a point in America where staunch supporters of one political figure tend believe he or she can say no wrong, while supporters of another political figure believe the same about him or her.
Likewise, a majority of CNN or MSNBC viewers turn into those outlets because they want to hear what they already believe. The same applies to viewers Fox News. My point is that the 31 percent of those who trust media a "great" or "fair" amount are far from a homogenous group.
In a op-ed posted on Saturday, law professor and political commentator Jonathan Turley wrote about "the rise of advocacy journalism" and "the rejection of objective journalism," while providing several examples:
Columbia Journalism Dean and New Yorker writer Steve Coll decried how the First Amendment right to freedom of speech was being “weaponized” to protect disinformation.
In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor Ted Glasser insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.” Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”
The Washington Post’s former executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward released the results of their interviews with over 75 media leaders and concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and even harmful. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle said it plainly: “Objectivity has got to go.”
Lauren Wolfe, the fired freelance editor for the New York Times, has not only gone public to defend her pro-Biden tweet but published a piece titled “I’m a Biased Journalist and I’m Okay With That.”
Former New York Times writer (and now Howard University Journalism Professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones is a leading voice for advocacy journalism. Indeed, Hannah-Jones has declared “all journalism is activism.”
As someone who entered college planning to major in journalism — and quickly switched to a business major — I found views like the above appalling, except they were nowhere near as appalling as the "journalism" of today.
In a recent bit of promising news, Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos vowed to transform the opinion section of his newspaper "in defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too, of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others."
READ MORE:
Jeff Bezos Makes Major Announcement About WaPo Editorial Page, and Liberals Are Apoplectic Over It
While many WaPo staffers likely threw histrionic fits, British media executive Robert Lewis, who joined the Post in early 2025, reportedly got into a “heated exchange” with a one such staffer, explaining that while reporters were protesting measures to expand readership, the very survival of the paper was at stake:
We are going to turn this thing around, but let’s not sugarcoat it. It needs turning around. We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.
The proof is in the pudding, as they — whoever "they" are — say. Words without demonstrable actions or changes are worse than no words at all.
Meanwhile, the likes of ABC News, NBC News, CBS News — and barely-hanging-on CNN and MSNBC — show little signs of real change. Let's call it a demonstrative move to more objectivity.
As I'm wont to say, play stupid games, win stupid prizes, only in the media's case, it's continue to play stupid games; continue to win stupid prizes.
