Quote Originally Posted by Xiahou View Post
Cronkite was good at what he did, but I'd never want to go back to a time when most Americans sat around for 30 minutes each even to have their news spoon fed to them. I much prefer varied sources, and competing viewpoints to having to take one person's word on it because they say "that's the way it is".
Sorry to tell you but that's how it still is nowadays. People watch the type of partisan news (O' Reilly, Obermann) that fits their ideology to comfort themselves and not deal with having to think for themselves or possibly even realize that the opposing side might have some good points as well.

Nowadays opinions are not based on the raw facts, select facts are manipulated to wrap around and support the opinion and only the facts which can be manipulated for either side are the ones presented in current news (at least from pundits).

From what research I have done, modern news began to turn into what it is now after the removal of the Fairness Doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine) in 1987:

The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was (in the Commission's view) honest, equitable and balanced.

I really don't know what to think of it, on one hand I think it is pretty sad when people listen to pundits instead of hearing the raw facts from journalists and making their own decisions, on the other hand I wouldn't care for government saying what the public can and cannot watch.

Hey, maybe I could make a thread about this doctrine and get a better view of both sides.