Bashing Broadcast News p.

By: M.L. Stein

Walter Cronkite describes a 'new class of itinerant
illiterates who blight the broadcasting side of journalism' sp.

THE RELIANCE OF TV news programs on microscopic sound bites and the trend of many newspapers toward lean stories is not all their fault, legendary anchorman Walter Cronkite recently told a Los Angeles audience.
The main problem, Cronkite said, lies with the nation's education system, which is turning out youngsters with little knowledge or curiosity about government and other issues.
"Despite all our technology, we somehow are falling far short of communicating all our information," he said. "We have a younger generation so uninformed that they are unable to exercise their franchise of democracy. So we are entertaining more than informing."
In this process, he added, "Too many newspapers are trying to compete with television in supplying entertainment rather than news."
Cronkite, a former anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News for 19 years, spoke as master of ceremonies at the presentation of the 33rd annual Distinguished Achievement in Journalism awards given by the University of Southern California Journalism Alumni Association.
Award recipients were Diane Saw-yer, ABC News journalist and co-anchor of the network's PrimeTime Live magazine show; Edwin Guthman, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer who currently is a USC journalism professor; and C-Span, the privately funded cable company that provides gavel-to-gavel coverage of Congress, national political conventions and other events. Brian Lamb, C-Span's founder, CEO and president, accepted the award for the company.
Cronkite, who got his start in journalism as a United Press reporter and World War II correspondent, said having a future audience for broadcast and print news depends on revamping schools "so we are turning out intelligent human beings who will demand the information we can give them if the market is there."
"We must teach them to be curious, to want to know about government, to ask questions, to be skeptical so they will not become cynical. Educate them so they will demand better television and better newspapers."
Still, Cronkite took a whack at his profession, complaining about a "new class of itinerant illiterates who blight the broadcasting side of journalism."
Some anchorpeople, he said, are inadequately educated and poorly trained. "[Their] only qualifications seem to be pretty clothes and stylish hairdos ? and this applies to both sexes."
Cronkite, who still does TV specials, made a distinction between what he called upcoming young journalists who are qualified and strive for quality reporting and the "wandering minstrel darlings of the consultants and the agents . . . who treat TV newspeople like so many ball players."
"To heck with their news credentials," Cronkite mocked. "What was their batting average in Seattle? How many games did they win with Butte? What can they do for the club's average next year? Three years with the club ? the magic with the fans has worn out. Get a new face, new excitement. Move 'em out."
He said many TV reporters in this group are interested in becoming stars rather than journalists. "They aren't interested in news except as it resembles show business," he lamented. "I'm afraid we are breeding a generation of electronic reporters whose thinking is as truncated as the format in which they must work. We've given birth to the 90-second reporters . . . who can grind out a glib stand-upper that will scratch the patina of the story and with luck but no foresight might even include as many as two of the five W's."
The good news, Cronkite observed, is that a new talented generation of young people is coming out of journalism schools "with the hearts and guts ? and educational background ? to be called journalists."
Sawyer took up the theme by suggesting that broadcast journalists become bolder.
"I can't understand why Rush Limbaugh has to be the most provocative voice on television," she said. "Why can't people turn to newscasts for stimulation and irreverence?"