About Walter Cronkite and the oldest man, a British WWI vet, Henry Alingham, who died at age 113, not long after Walter Cronkite did.
At about 8 pm yesterday I turned on the TV, and changed the channel a few stations very fast, and I saw Walter Cronkite's face, and I immediately knew he was dead, because that was the only reason he would be on TV. I found it surreal watching the coverage of his death, akin to watching a documentary about Lenin's life in 1925 Russia. And I flat out laughed at Fox comparing him to Brit Hume. Fox News, like the other stations, was praising him. I found this odd, considering Walter Cronkite very strongly denounced Fox, especially for its unethical journalist tactics, such as hosts having their technicians cut off the mics of their guests. He also appeared in the documentary Outfoxed: Ruppert Murdoch's War on Journalism. Cronkite was strongly opposed to any increased media consolidation and thought the media should be democratized. Lenin agreed with Trotsky, not Stalin, and in fact he did not even know Stalin, where as Trotsky was his right hand man and the head of the Red Army during the civil war. So a documentary praising Lenin in 1925 Russia would be kind of awkward. Cronkite, who was the face of television broadcasting in its early prime, later opposed the direction the media took. Journalism has never been good. George Orwell wrote in his only introduction to Animal Farm, that despite the lack of coercion, the outcome of the media in Britain was rather the same as it was in "Totalitarian" states like the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. But at least without the coercive tight controls of media, their is a possibility for reform. Cronkite worked very hard to establish serious, objective journalism, working with his staff as equals. But media began on the economy of scale. Period financial pains allowed independent media outlets to be purchased by other corporations. Reagan vetoed an extension of the Fairness Doctrine. Then, the Telecommunications Reform Act passed. Then the FCC repealed all ownership rules, in a 3-2 vote, however, there was a bipartisan uprising, and the Senate, many of whom did so at the urging of Cronkite himself, repealed the FCC ruling. Nevertheless, I will have to write another article about a serious topic like the Media. I can summarize my view by stating that journalism went in the direction of Walter Lippman, editor of the New Republic, who helped perpetuate the myth of the Cold War, in fact he created the name, despite the fact that he agreed with ousted, rightful dauphin to FDR's presidency, Henry Wallace. His idea was that the job of the media was to "Manufacture Consent". For this Cronkite should receive criticism, as he had the ability, if only he did, to take on Lippman, and he never did, despite strong disagreements with him.
Cronkite also was unsuccessful in his attempt to secure free airtime for candidates. Since I want to limit this article, I will again summarize. Anyone who has been around politics know how dreadful it is to raise money for campaigns to buy 30 second ads to throw at your opponent. It is very tiring, takes up large segments of time and it is pointless since a policy cannot be advocated for/against in 30 seconds, no matter what it is. So, one question. Why don't the politicians give themselves substantial free air time and get rid of the problem?
In other activities he opposed the Iraq War and the War on Drugs.
In fact he posed the question of who the Robert Macnamara of the War on Drugs would be. You may remember he died a couple weeks ago, and he was older than Cronkite.
Even older than them, the world's oldest man, Henry Allingham, died the next day, a World War I vet.
We are at the end of an era where we can have a primary source to tell us the unrevised history. For example, it is conventional thought that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "necessary". First of all, as Albert Camus pointed out, there is no way to justify using or even building a Nuclear Weapon. Second of all, the use of the weapons was opposed by Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas McCarthur, Chester Nimitz, in fact, all of the military leadership. Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenhwimer, Leo Szilard, most of the people who created the device in the first place, opposed their existence(in the hands of the military) and condemned Truman. Only Truman, who a year before was the junior senator from Missouri, who was an incompetent little joke, decided against everybody else to use the weapons. He never even should have been President, the obvious successor to Roosevelt was his best friend and Vice President, Henry Wallace. Yet thanks to Eleanor Roosevelt, it has been conventional wisdom that it was the only decision he could have made. I could give another example of revised history, Al Sharpton, a week after Michael Jackson's death, in public, told Jackson's kids "Your daddy wasn't strange". Michael Jackson wasn't strange? So its nice to have primary sources.
In addition, people like Nelson Mandela, Hugh Hefner, Howard Zinn, Gore Vidal and my number one political influence(as well as the latter two's), professor Noam Chomsky, are close in age to Cronkite, and they are among the most interesting and entertaining people to listen to.
Any of their deaths' will be very sad days, like yesterday was.
Post-Script: Japan refused to accept the Potsdam declaration, then, requested an armistice, as how WWI ended.