Manipulation as 'news'

There are lots of people discovering today that "news" is often manipulation.

This is especially true when only a few big corporations control most of the information that passes as "news."

But this is hardly a new phenomenon.

It has always been the case.

I'm finishing up an excellent new biography of American journalism icon Joseph Pulitzer. The man could scarcely decide what he was – politician or newspaperman. But he became the most important publisher in America during his lifetime. And his name still graces journalism's highest award.

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And, last week, we learned more about the person formerly known as "the most trusted man in America" – Walter Cronkite.

I devoted nearly an entire chapter to the myth of Walter Cronkite in my book "Stop the Presses!" But the information about his political activism and, later in life, his anti-American political extremism, could fill volumes.

Back in the 1960s, it seems, Cronkite, then the CBS News anchor, actually collaborated with anti-Vietnam War activists, even offering advice on how to raise their public profile and pledging his network's help.

Anyone who lived through the era understands how Cronkite turned the tide of national opinion against the war – leaving untold millions to die in the wake of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal and a congressional cutoff of aid to anti-communist forces.

But what we didn't know was just how far Cronkite went behind the scenes to bolster the anti-war movement and manipulate the "news."

FBI documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act, say that in November 1969, Cronkite encouraged students at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., to invite Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie to address a protest they were planning near Cape Kennedy (now known as Cape Canaveral). Cronkite told the group's leader that Muskie would be nearby for a fundraiser on the day of the protest, and said "CBS would rent [a] helicopter to take Muskie to and from site of rally."

Here's an excerpt from that FBI memo:

[Redacted] told group he had been to CBS Channel Six in Orlando prior to meeting to speak to newsmen about Vietnam moratorium activities. [Redacted] related that while at TV station, Walter Cronkite, nationally known radio and television commentator, spoke to him by telephone for approximately forty-five minutes and that Cronkite reportedly told [redacted] that CBS would have thirty-six hours of coverage on Vietnam moratorium with "open mike" to give demonstrators a chance to be heard. Cronkite noted, according to [redacted], that Senator Edmund Muskie would be in Orlando, Fla., Nov. 13 instant for Democratic fundraising dinner. According to [redacted], Cronkite suggested that [redacted] attempt to Muskie to come [sic] to Cape Kennedy to speak at Kelly Park rally to be held Nov. 13 instant. Cronkite allegedly told [redacted] that CBS would rent helicopter to take Muskie to and from site of rally at Kelly Park.

This conversation took place just nine months after Cronkite delivered his famous determination that the "bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate."

He wasn't right at all. Vietnam didn't end in a stalemate. It ended in a bloody holocaust for the people of Southeast Asia. And phony "newsmen" like Walter Cronkite bear at least some of the responsibility for misrepresenting their own opinions as the facts on the ground.

Walter Cronkite was a stooge from the get-go. We now know who recommended him as the anchor for CBS News – the editor of the far-left socialist magazine The Nation. We also know what he morphed into once CBS let him go – a whacked-out globalist who sought to persuade Americans to give up their national sovereignty.

Do you think much has changed since then?

Maybe there's more competition now from the Internet.

But independent news sources like the one you are reading are still as scarce as hen's teeth.

There's still a whole lotta manipulatin' goin' on.