By Dr. Alex McFarland for THRIVE NEWS
“And that’s the way it is: Friday, March 6, 1981.” With those words, Walter Cronkite signed off the CBS Evening News for the last time as its anchor, using the phrase he made famous over his 19 years in the post. Americans made Cronkite the most watched news source, in large part due to their trust in the information Cronkite delivered. “That’s the way it is” was understood; a genuine way to cap off the delivery of information for Americans eager to be informed rather than swayed, lobbied and handled, but how things changed. Just 17 years after Cronkite’s signoff, another influential American would confound a grand jury with the comment, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
A skillful orator, lawyer and thinker, President Clinton knew his way around a verb, especially one as apparently tricky as the irregular verb, “to be.” The strength and flexibility of the word has been diluted and stretched in our time beyond anything Cronkite had in mind and perhaps even Clinton. Today, the same thing can be covered by two networks with such differences that the viewer may not recognize the story as the same one. Well-spoken, well-educated commentators (they might have been journalists in Cronkite’s day) don’t so much report news as they package it for consumption with clever phrasing and argumentative bent designed to win viewers and sway thinking.
Facts, data, science, professors, charts, graphs, forecasts, even history — all are open to interpretation. In fact, purposeful obfuscation and the injection of aggressive ambiguity into news reporting get commentators a substantial salary package and an evening programming slot. When they grow their opinion-fueled brand sufficiently, a much-coveted podcast is added, applying upward trajectory pressure on their compensation. Reporting the news as it actually happened without cleverly parsing interview statements or creating sound bites full of innuendo and devoid of full truth is a path to unemployment.
Indeed, Cronkite would be unemployable today. Consider other thinkers famous for their pursuit of truth. Socrates developed the Socratic method to foster critical thinking and deeper understanding. Descartes said, “I think therefore I am,” exploring his own use of the verb to be and its significance in proving existence. Both Socrates and Descartes would likely be shunned today for their pursuit of absolutes. Such is the environment in which truth attempts to live in 2025.
