Walter Cronkite

OK so if the pundits left, right, and center are to be believed Barack Obama’s 7-month-old Presidency is in trouble and his speech to Congress on health care was his last best chance to keep the ship afloat. We’ll let you decide if that’s a bit hyperbolic (see: Bill Clinton health care failure 1994, reelection 1996 or George W. Bush “Education President” 2001, Iraq War legacy-killer 2008).

The big speech on the hill is getting plenty of (digital) ink but it was not Obama’s most important speech on Wednesday. That came hours earlier in New York when he spoke at Walter Cronkite’s funeral. And what he said has everything to do with his, and America’s problems, real and imagined.

Standing before the assembled masses of media and journalism executives and stars Obama spoke truth to power:

It may have seemed inevitable that he was named the most trusted man in America. But here’s the thing: That title wasn’t bestowed on him by a network. We weren’t told to believe it by some advertising campaign. It was earned. It was earned by year after year and decade after decade of painstaking effort; a commitment to fundamental values; his belief that the American people were hungry for the truth, unvarnished and unaccompanied by theatre or spectacle. He didn’t believe in dumbing down. He trusted us.

What a novel thought. Earned trust built over time. Not trust claimed in splashy promos so silly they look like Daily Show parodies. But there was more.

We also remember and celebrate the journalism that Walter practiced — a standard of honesty and integrity and responsibility to which so many of you have committed your careers. It’s a standard that’s a little bit harder to find today. We know that this is a difficult time for journalism. Even as appetites for news and information grow, newsrooms are closing. Despite the big stories of our era, serious journalists find themselves all too often without a beat. Just as the news cycle has shrunk, so has the bottom line.

Ah yes, money. As Obama notes journalism is in perilous times. The giant corporate owners of newspapers are staring into the abyss of free online content and vanishing paid paper circulation. Advertising has disappeared. They are responsible to their shareholders first. Readers and citizens second (maybe).

And television? Despite the predictable lionizing of Mr. Cronkite, network television was always the place of news stars who commanded large salaries to recreate the morning headlines from the New York Times and Washington Post in moving pictures. Before GE figured out it could force NBC to make a profit in news the networks at least did a public service in exchange for the use of the publicly-owned airwaves. Remember those hour-long documentaries in prime time? Those days are long gone as the President noted.

And too often, we fill that void with instant commentary and celebrity gossip and the softer stories that Walter disdained, rather than the hard news and investigative journalism he championed. “What happened today?” is replaced with “Who won today?” The public debate cheapens. The public trust falters. We fail to understand our world or one another as well as we should — and that has real consequences in our own lives and in the life of our nation. We seem stuck with a choice between what cuts to our bottom line and what harms us as a society. Which price is higher to pay? Which cost is harder to bear?

It is not a lofty philosophical question. The destruction of journalism as a place where citizens could reliably get (mainly) facts and reason is a cancer that will destroy this 233-year-old democracy. It’s easy to blame the big bad companies that control the mainstream media (by which I mean giant corporate media like Fox, NBC, USA Today — not the silly meaning ascribed the phrase by bed-wetting whiny conservatives) but the old answer — the audience chooses what to watch/read/listen — is partly true.

There are choices galore. We have become the Wal-Mart of information: Cheap, available, and disposable. We consume the information we desire. We depend on our Facebook friends to tell us what’s going on. We only watch what we already believe. We believe we know the truth while the other side is brainwashed. Nuance? Shades of gray? The possibility that perhaps we are wrong and the other side is right? Even occasionally? [Insert shouts of righteous indignation here.]

We are children. And we have very bad parents.

The crowd at Cronkite’s funeral dutifully nodded at Obama’s points and then got into their awaiting black cars and returned to their plush offices to prepare the next posting/article/op-ed/newscast/chatterfest. They all might individually agree with what the President said but likely feel powerless to do anything about it. And be honest about it: Is Keith Olbermann suddenly going to grow up and use his keen wit and insight to examine all sides of an issue? Is Diane Sawyer going to grab the reins of World News and use it to give her viewers more than fast-paced gloss-over 2-minute reports on the biggest stories of the day? Is Rupert Murdoch going to direct his minions at Fox News to at least be responsible enough to stick to the facts instead of making things up? Is Jon Klein going to use CNN’s substantial resources to replace his network’s prime-time chatter with actual reporting?

And from their perspective why should they? The audience would rather watch train-wreck TV. And they have all those choices!

If you expect the media to fix itself you are delusional. Along with his honest diagnosis Obama gave the modern-day “giants” of journalism a little pat on the back but it was hard to take seriously. Cronkite was no god. Murrow did more to save America from itself. Adolph Ochs essentially founded objective American journalism. But Cronkite at least believed that he had a responsibility to his country. The Sean Hannity’s of this world believe only in what supports the largest paycheck.

“This democracy,” Walter said, “cannot function without a reasonably well-informed electorate.” That’s why the honest, objective, meticulous reporting that so many of you pursue with the same zeal that Walter did is so vital to our democracy and our society: Our future depends on it.

So look in the mirror. When the American people stop caring about what’s true and factual instead buy into whatever superstition or fantasy suits them at the moment, our democracy is lost.

Our American story continues. It needs to be told. And if we choose to live up to Walter’s example, if we realize that the kind of journalism he embodied will not simply rekindle itself as part of a natural cycle, but will come alive only if we stand up and demand it and resolve to value it once again, then I’m convinced that the choice between profit and progress is a false one — and that the golden days of journalism still lie ahead.