Cronkite: Media companies' pressures to generate ever-greater profits threaten America's freedom

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT/AP: Cronkite: Quest for Media Profits Hurts
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 9, 2007

NEW YORK (AP) -- Pressures by media companies to generate ever-greater profits are threatening the very freedom the nation was built upon, former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite warned Thursday.

In a keynote address at Columbia University, Cronkite said today's journalists face greater challenges than those from his generation. No longer could journalists count on their employers to provide the necessary resources, he said, ''to expose truths that powerful politicians and special interests often did not want exposed.''

Instead, he said, ''they face rounds and rounds of job cuts and cost cuts that require them to do ever more with ever less.''

''In this information age and the very complicated world in which we live today, the need for high-quality reporting is greater than ever,'' he told journalism students and professionals at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. ''It's not just the journalist's job at risk here. It's American democracy. It is freedom.''

Cronkite said news accuracy has declined because of consolidations and closures that have left many American towns with only one newspaper. And as broadcasters cut budgets and air time for news, he said, ''we're all left with a sound bite culture that turns political campaigns into political theater.''

The former anchor urged owners of media companies -- newspapers and broadcast alike -- to recognize they have special civic responsibilities....

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Media-Ownership.html

[Auggie]

1. What about corporate bias?

[physioex]

2. I agree and respect Cronkite....

But he has not taken into consideration the new generation of Bloggers that will come and take the place of paid corporate reporters.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Bloggers are, indeed, truth tellers, but I'm wondering when they might have the resources...

for national and international news gathering.