Can objective journalism endure, after Cronkite?

By Larry Atkins

Editor's note: Larry's thoughts on Walter Cronkite provide us an opportunity to talk about what journalism is, and might be, in the Internet era. I'll follow Larry's piece with a comment of my own, and I invite you to do the same.

As a journalism professor, the death of Walter Cronkite is a reminder of what journalism was and may never be again.

When my college students ask me who I think the best journalists in the business were, my first answer would always be Walter Cronkite. Like most young people, most of my students tend to get their news from local television, the Internet, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Most of them do not read newspapers. Very few of them were familiar with Cronkite.

"Walter Cronkite was and always will be the gold standard," ABC News anchor Charles Gibson told the Associated Press. "His objectivity, his evenhandedness, his news judgment are all great examples."

Walter Cronkite was everything a journalist was supposed to be. He was truly fair and balanced; not in the Fox News sense. He was thorough and prepared and he asked the tough questions that needed to be asked of politicians and government officials, whether they were liberal, conservative, Democrat or Republican.

Back in 1972, Cronkite was voted as the most trusted person in America. Since then, the public's trust of journalists has eroded over the years due to various scandals and controversies involving plagiarism and fabrication, including Jayson Blair, Steven Glass, Janet Cooke, Jack Kelley, the emergence of doctoring photos through Photoshop, and the 60 Minutes' use of an allegedly forged document.

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