Question about Nixon and Watergate

[babylonsister]

Was there an equivalent of faux snooze back in the day, tv or print? Did it seem to take so long because news didn't travel at the speed of light?

[RDANGELO]

1. No.

People have speculated that if there was, he might not have been impeached or removed from office. Roger Ailes was thinking about it.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. There was nothing like Fox. There were only three network TV stations,

CBS, NBC and ABC. We got most of our news from Walter Cronkite and the Huntley-Brinkley show and from daily newspapers (Woodward and Bernstein at the Washington Post were responsible for most of the original investigative reporting). Of course there was nothing even remotely like the Internet or Twitter. But the Watergate scandal, start to finish, didn't take as long as one might expect, considering how complicated it was (the "follow the money" part was quite complex - CREEP was seriously into money-laundering through Mexico). Start to finish, it took about two years, but the fun didn't really begin until the Saturday Night Massacre in October of 1973. Nixon was out the following August.

[uponit7771]

3. Nope, Faux was born because of WG iinm ... GOO wanted a mouthpiece

[SCantiGOP]

4. Probably the biggest conservative voice

Was National Review, and its circulation was tiny compared to mainstream publications and the audience of the networks.
Things were much different then. Walter Cronkite, who topped polls as the most trusted person in the country, said that if he was doing his job right no one would know if he voted for the most liberal or the most conservative candidates.

[tritsofme]

5. Here is a good article on the subject.

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/5/12/15630372/watergate-impeachment-conservative-public-opinion-trump-history

I remember reading it, can't believe it was 2.5 years ago!

[elleng]

6. Nope, we've been taken over by 'progress.'

[book_worm]

7. No, and thank goodness there wasn't. The 24-hour news cycle, imho, has ruined

real journalism. We had real reporters when we had just the three major networks.

[virgogal]

11. The internet ruined real journalism IMHO.

[spanone]

8. Nothing like fox. All TV was regulated & licensed by the FCC

The Fairness Doctrine was alive and well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

[cutroot]

9. It wasn't just the media, it was society in general

Anyone that was against the war was considered to be anti-american, even by many Democrats. Even myself as I had been conditioned as well. I first detected the cracks in their logic in 1968. The news took great pains to depict the anti-war protesters as dirty hippies even though most of us weren't. We grew our hair long as a sign of unity. None of the networks supported the anti-war movement until the bitter end.

The common thread that they used to justify their war was that if we let the north Vietnamese take Saigon, the domino effect would have China controlling all of Asia forever. I later learned that Vietnam is a major exporter of oil. That is what the conservatives of the day had decided that we should sacrifice our lives for.

It did seem to take forever.

[former9thward]

10. Vietnam has never been "a major exporter of oil".

It is #32 in the world in oil production. Basically nothing compared to the major oil producers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production

[babylonsister]

12. So the networks

were preaching the party/government line in a way, and patriotism rocked.

I grew up with Cronkite/Huntley/Brinkley but was young.

[cutroot]

13. The only media that was taking on nixon and the war

was the Smothers Brothers, Rocky and Bullwinkle (nixon hated them) and a few late night comedians. There was Playboy and a few other counter-culture print mediums like Rolling Stone that started beating the peace drum.

[crickets]

15. Also Laugh-In, and maybe Mad Magazine. nt

[madinmaryland]

14. No. There was no Fox News. There were the three main networks, PBS, and independent channels.

Same thing on the radio. Newsprint while biased kept opinion and news separate to an extent.

Things take time to work judicial system. Once that happens and people start testifying things start moving.