Perhaps if all the peoples of the world understand what war really means, we would eliminate it.
Walter CronkiteRead
Helping set the day's agenda and deciding what we used and editing it, that was a journalistic high point. I liked reporting as well. Just doing the news - the live performance - wasn't important. Working on the desk was.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of planning and editorial decisions in journalism over simply reporting events.
Walter Cronkite reflects on his experience in journalism, highlighting that the real achievement lies in shaping narratives and managing content rather than the act of reporting live news itself. He values the editorial work that influences how the day's news is presented to the audience, seeing it as a critical aspect of journalism that requires skill and insight.
In practice
In a lecture on media ethics, I quoted Cronkite to emphasize the responsibility of editors.
Perhaps if all the peoples of the world understand what war really means, we would eliminate it.
The death of Churchill at 90 was one of those watershed moments in which the obituary rises to a special calling beyond the sharing of remembered times. It gave an older generation a rare opportunity to explain something of itself to its children.
I suppose popularity is measured by ratings. If a broadcaster is known as the leader because of ratings, then that's where people most want to be seen and heard, so there's no question that there's an advantage.
Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine.
I feel no compulsion to be a pundit. As a matter of fact, I really don't have that much to say about most things. Working with hard news satisfies me completely.
I think that our comfort is in our history.
Journalism, some huge percentage of it, should be devoted to putting pressure on power, on nonsense, on chicanery of all kinds and if that's going to invite a lawsuit, well, bring it on.
The really tough thing would have been to decide to take Woodward and Bernstein off the story. They were carrying the coal for us - in that their stories were right.
If an investigative reporter finds out that someone has been robbing the store, that may be 'gotcha' journalism, but it's also good journalism.
In the normal course of things, journalists want their story, and as soon as they are through with it, they pack their cameras and go. That was never the impression that David Astor gave when you were interviewed by him. It was far deeper than that.
When I was trained as a journalist, as a race-relations reporter in Nashville covering the end of the civil-rights movement, we were strictly forbidden to use the first-person pronoun. There was kind of an electric charge around it. To come out from hiding and use the word 'I' carried a lot of fright for me.
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