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KATIE ZERR: We miss you Walter, Chet and David


Why do we not have someone we can trust to give us information that is untainted by political lean?
Why is it that our people only want to hear what they think is the truth and not the real truth?
In a time of crisis in our nation, whether it be the coronavirus outbreak or the demands from the citizenry for immediate change in our law enforcement, we are missing those voices that we could trust to present us with the truth, based in fact.
The majority of us, especially in small town America, have been taught right from wrong through our upbringing. We were taught to respect law enforcement, to do as we have been told and if we are in the right, it will come out in the end.
We were taught to listen to those who are smarter than we are, whether through education or life experience and learn from their example.
We were also taught to open our minds before our mouths.
Somewhere along the line, as we have gotten older, those lessons have been lost.
Now we are living in a culture where the loudest voice, whether or not it is the most educated or the most experienced, is deemed the winner if they can drown out the other voices.
We live in an era where our once unbiased and informative news sources have become the mouth pieces for the left and right. Those who are supposed to be presenting the news, factual information about the what is happening in the world, are now spoon feeding the people pablum that advances their agendas.
Recently a friend asked where are the Walter Cronkites of our day? My answer is that we don’t have anyone who meets the standards set by those newscasters because of the time in which we live.
With the 24-hour news cycle, money and ratings are the driving forces and not truth and facts. We live in a time when we need to watch or read at least three different sources of information and make up our own minds as what is actually the truth.
Politics should never enter the formula of delivering the news. It belongs in opinion, and should clearly be presented as such.
In these fights against this virus, social injustice and judgements of our fellow man, there should never be a we versus them. It should only be a “we,” as in we the people; we the neighbors; we the community that cares for all others.
When looking at reforms in criminal justice, in policing and in fairness to all members of our community, there should be no we vs them. It should only be we.
Why should innocent until proven guilty apply to only certain members of our society?
Why do we turn off our brains and turn up the volume and think that is the way to reason?
Where are the Walter Cronkites of our nation?
They are being shouted down by big mouths from the right and left who feel it is more important to be heard than to convey the facts.
They are beng drowned in conspiracies and social media snippets that leave fact in the reaview mirror as they race through the “news” facebook pages and websites.
We are a nation that has left healthy discussion behind and replaced it with berating, ignoring and humiliating. That is good television and obviously the way to run a country.
Integrity has gone by the wayside.
Sorry Walter, we have destroyed a once respected segment of our society and replaced with a group of egotistical narcissist who get paid big bucks to act like they believe the crud they are spouting, passing it off as news.
I will fondly remember a more innocent time when what Huntley and Brinkley told us, we could take to the bank.
When one source, whether it was CBS, ABC or NBC, could be depended on to give us the news, untainted by the station owner’s or board of director’s politics.
I miss those days. It is getting tiring to have dig through all of the sludge to find a smidgen of the truth in our television “news” today.
To Walter, Chet and David, we miss you lads and long for the day when someone will step into your shoes.

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