R.I.P. Uncle Walter & Pop Culture

Today the news is filled with eulogies of television news legend, Walter Cronkite. Chatter everywhere speaks of how it was from the lips of “Uncle Walter” that we learned that JFK was assassinated, men have set foot on the moon, that Vietnam was a quagmire, Nixon was a crook, and countless other things.  The story of this man’s passing is filled with the essentials of news… who, what, when, and where, but I have found the why, and how somewhat lacking.

Today with literally endless choices for news that ranges from the three old broadcast networks, to CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the BBC, and even Al Jazeera, there is no way for even the most popular choice to come close to Walter Cronkite’s sometimes 50% audience share. I am a bit hard pressed to find a percentage count, but the number #1 news cast these days seems to be NBC‘s nightly news with over 5 million viewers. It appears that at the height of his power, Cronkite had around 20 million viewers.

Even Dead Last Came In Third

Walter Cronkite wasn’t always number one. During the the 60s, the Huntley Brinkley Report on NBC was often the top dog with Cronkite’s star reaching it’s ascendancy after 1970. Though he is now being most closely associated with the news of the 60s, it was the 70s where he ruled. He never wore out his welcome, and when Walter Cronkite retired, he left as a still victorious champion of TV news for over a decade!

For many people Walter Cronkite was the epitome of broadcast professionalism, and he was their eye on the world in a turbulent time of change. I suspect that if you look deeper, you will find that he was actually the most comfortable choice for many in an era of… well 3 choices. And as did the other 2 choices, he reported the stories of that time as they occurred… as he should. This is not to belittle the man’s accomplishments, but to show why never again will anyone will attain his heights so long as the First Amendment, and choice are the rule… as they were NOT during his reign. Today, we don’t simply have choices… we have every choice.

Just as we have gone from having massively popular Top 40 radio stations with 70 shares, and a major musical act such as The Beatles was simultaneously experienced by everyone from children to old ladies on the Ed Sullivan Show, we will never again have one man so relied upon for our news. For ten years now, I have watched as act after act holds the number #1 spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 Singles Chart, that I have never heard of, and who’s great hit I may never hear. The fact is, there is no mass appeal radio anymore, no ubiquitous pop music, no new Beatles, no news hegemony, and perhaps with the possible exception of The Super Bowl, what’s left of pop culture is niche. In those ten years I have also become someone who rarely watches any TV at all.  I am not unusual.

E Pluribus Unum In Reverse

So it is with the chatter of a million bloggers, amateur reporters, talking heads, a choir of singing  forum trolls, and on and on… we commend the passing of an era that must never be again, for we have sacrificed the one voice for many. No longer tied to monopolies, oligarchies, and cartels of wisdom… and in the light of a more fully realized First Amendment, we bid farewell to Walter Cronkite, mass media, and pop culture. Rest in peace!

The small head of the comet has passed, and the tail is long, bright, and glorious to behold!