Gone are the days of serious broadcast journalism, as typified by Edward Murrow's ground-breaking radio coverage of World War II in the 1940s and by his singularly brave coverage of Sen. McCarthy's Communist-scare-mongering of the 1950s.
Gone are the days of Walter Cronkite who, in spite of some left-leaning biases, maintained a sense of decorum and had a clear sense of the difference between news and entertainment.
Today's fixation on Anna Nicole Smith's death day after day after day shows how far broadcast news companies have fallen in their race to the bottom of the barrel in search of ratings and audience share. Tabloid journalism is alive and well today on the airwaves of the major networks, not just in the tabloid papers at your neighborhood grocery store checkout lane.
When will broadcast news see the error of its current way of putting gossip on par with news and return to covering news?
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