Where is Walter Cronkite When We Need Him?   

Dain L. Schult, CEO, Global Entertainment Technology, Inc.

Americans' trust in the media has fallen to an all-time low, according to Gallup. 

 (An excerpt from a commentary by Dylan Byers - CNN Money)

"In a climate of bitter political partisanship, anti-media rhetoric and diversified media options, just 32% of Americans now say they trust the media "to report the news fully, accurately and fairly" -- the lowest level since 1972, when Gallup began polling. Now, only about a third of the U.S. has any trust in the Fourth Estate, a stunning development for an institution designed to inform the public," Gallup said in its press release. While Americans' faith in media has been in decline for over a decade, this year's findings represent a sharp drop from the previous eight years, when between 40 and 45 percent of Americans expressed trust."

Why should anyone be surprised by this turn of events?  The days of a reasonably impartial newscaster were buried with Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley's bones when they died.  At this rate and in no time flat the media can be at the same trust level of Congress and used car salesmen....

Decade after decade, the slow creep of interjection of personal opinions and shading news stories to benefit one group over another has continued - sometimes it seemed quite innocent and justified, but now is as heavy handed as ISIS "court" dispensing "justice."

Reality shows, infotainment shows, the blurring of real newscasters and reporters showing up in movies and on television dramas and sitcoms have only further eroded the element of trust and impartiality.  As Entertainment department budgets drew at all of the TV networks, the inevitable shrinking of the News department budgets has taken its effect.

Couple that with universities cranking out a glut of  millennial "journalists" who have been indoctrinated with years of liberal/socialist professors pounding a distorted view of history, social morays and the like into their heads and add in the "news" value of TMZ, Entertainment Tonight, The Daily Show, HLN or even CNN and you have a witch's brew that is the "news" these days.

Greatest invention of the 20th Century?   The Internet.

Greatest Detriment to Impartial News Reporting?  The Internet.

Don't forget to add in the risk factor of being a reporter covering a story anywhere in the world now where you are in constant danger for being there and being a reporter.  You probably think I'm talking about somewhere in the Middle East with all the upheaval going on - Baghdad or Kabul. Actually, I was talking about Baltimore, Maryland... either way, it has become a very dangerous job.

So what to do about this?  Good question without a good answer.

The genie, once escaped from the bottle of impartiality and moral journalism, is not bloody likely to go back into that bottle.  

Samuel F.B. Morse sent the first telegraphic message on May 24, 1844 and he was a prophet for what he sent in that telegram between Washington, DC and Baltimore that day:

"What hath God wrought?"

Indeed.  172 years later, my God, what have we wrought with the Internet?

Think about it.


(As an aside, GET will be involved in both Terrestrial and Internet radio operations in states across the country, including, but not limited to Georgia, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Iowa and Wyoming.)