Memes Not So

 

 I’ve seen Baby Boomers (and their Parents) post this Walter Cronkite Meme about how in the good old days the news was just reported and people were then allowed to think for themselves. That is not entirely true.

On February 27, 1968, Walter Cronkite closed "Report from Vietnam: Who, What, When, Where, Why?" with the following:

“We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that Hanoi's winter-spring offensive has been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations…..For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer's almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle.”

Following Cronkite's report, President Lyndon Johnson is claimed by some to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." And he did not seek re-election.

When a person as well-respected as Cronkite did it it changed things. Also anything Cronkite reported about Vietnam after his February 1968 report (and the US had direct combat in Vietnam until April 1973) became biased by his belief in the US not being able to win the war. Whether he was right or not about Vietnam doesn't matter. The fact that he stopped reporting the facts and instead gave his own assessment of the war tainted all his future Vietnam reports.

So, even in the “good ole days” the news wasn’t always reported TO us, but AT us.