So did the Most Trusted Man in America manipulate the news?

I grew up watching Walter Cronkite and was a big fan. Still am. But this is interesting.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts2067

Legendary CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite allegedly collaborated with anti-Vietnam War activists in the 1960s, going so far as to offer advice on how to raise the public profile of protests and even pledging CBS News resources to help pull off events, according to FBI documents obtained by Yahoo! News.

 

No shit.

 

He never did what he didn't get caught at.

 

If true, which I assume, they're no better than FOX. This also lends some credibility to Bernard Goldberg's depiction of a politically charged culture at CBS.

 

Even one of the most trusted journalists in America deliberately influenced the news. That says a lot about the place (or lack thereof) for ethics in journalism.

 

How do I know Hoover's FBI didn't manipulate this report?

 

Good point. When I think about it, Cronkite thought more of ethics during his prime than any commentator these days.

 

Wouldn't they have used it against him then?

You really think there plan was to produce some false evidence against him and hold onto it for 40 years?

Why, that's diabolical.

 

Used what against him? When?

The FBI files are littered with bullshit fourth-hand fictions like these.

J Edgar Hoover: the closeted, cross-dressing embodiment of American paranoia.

 

Anyone who has heard Cronkite talk over the years knows the man is an unabashed liberal when it comes to certain topics. That said, I still enjoyed him as CBS News anchor.

 

And regardless of any liberal-conservative stance, it's likely the war was a hopeless quagmire in his eyes, and he just reported it as such. I'm sure there were at least a few staunch conservatives who saw it as such.

Ivory tower ethics aside, human beings report these things, and it's impossible to set aside every bias 100 percent of the time.