Perhaps if all the peoples of the world understand what war really means, we would eliminate it.
Give news a little more time, and don't request that they also, in their news time, entertain. We're not entertainers. We're journalists. And we need more time to do our job well.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of allowing journalists sufficient time to report news accurately without the pressure of entertainment.
Walter Cronkite highlights the distinction between journalism and entertainment, advocating for an understanding that journalists require adequate time to cover stories thoroughly. His statement is a call to prioritize factual reporting over the sensationalism often seen in the media landscape, urging the audience to appreciate the depth of journalism beyond surface-level entertainment.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on the importance of journalistic integrity, you might reference Walter Cronkite's views on the role of time in reporting.
More from Walter Cronkite
All quotes βThe 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.
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I joined the 'Times' in 1972, and I came with the mark of Cain on me because I was clearly against the war. But my editor, Abe Rosenthal, he hired me because he liked stories. He used to come to the Washington bureau and almost literally pat me on the head and say, 'How is my little Commie today? What do you have for me?'
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.
We cannot make good news out of bad practice.
We have to compete in a universe of 200 networks, so we have to carve out our own niche, and to me, that niche is just basic shoe-leather journalism with some good journalists at the helm you can trust as presenters.