When I was growing up, with only network TV, the nightly newsmen (and they were only men) were personalities who came into your life at, oh, about five, and then again at Eleven. They were trusted personalities. You just knew – or the adults of that day seemed to know – that they wouldn’t lie to you. CBS, NBC, ABC were the Biggies then.
On the National News, there was, hmmm…Walter Cronkite comes to mind in this early morning, although there were a few others. They, too, were trusted. Certainly Walter Cronkite was. A wee bit before that was Edward R. Murrow. He personified everything a newsman should be – and isn’t anymore. After all, didn’t he confront McCarthy?
Then there is the Now. To say I am, at best, skeptical of any and all “News” would be an understatement of massive proportions. “News” is managed by those who own the disseminating corporations. Each “News” channel or outlet is owned by one or more of the BiggiePiggies. I believe this, unfortunately, across the board. If they’re MSM, pick a station/channel, and it’s likely they’re spewing a line; spinning a yarn for those what they used to call Great Unwashed Masses to take in and accept. Um…in case you hadn’t noticed…that Us – We the People, yes?
Are there places where the “News” can be trusted? Even online, most have an agenda of one kind or another. I read voraciously; so, in addition to reading books, journals, papers (and always, always, checking out who the author is of all the aforementioned as best I can), I read across the spectrum, in my amateur attempt to cobble together some form of Truth for the day.
But, at the end of that Day, I am reminded of Mr. Orwell’s book, 1984, at the end, where Winston finally admits…that 2×2 = 5. This is, after all, what we must believe.
Is it?
PRevere Blue
Paul Revere Blue 