Edward Murrow and Walter Cronkite were the epitome of journalistic integrity and honesty in the industry. Broadcast journalism in its current state is a pathetic shadow of its former self at best, and dead at worst.
What killed great broadcast journalism? Many would say the creation of mainstream network news stations like CNN, which created the 24-hour news cycle. Because “news” cycles 24 hours a day, networks scrounge for anything to fill airtime — even if that means lying. Americans are less informed and more divided than they have ever been.
HBO’s The Newsroom addressed this very issue. Watch this panel with the show’s creators and actors of The Newsroom. (We would have included the infamous “Why is America the Greatest Country” scene, but YouTube won’t let anyone embed any video of that scene.)
Tell us, what do you think caused network news to become so pitifully useless?
