...And That's The Way It Was.

I'm glad to see the attention paid to Walter Cronkite's passing. In this day of 24 hour news cycles and incredibly short attention spans, it's good that so many people recall Cronkite's contributions, even though he's been off the air for a generation.

Cronkite told it like it was. He knew how to edit; how to keep personal opinions and hype out of the story and stick to the five W's -- who, what, where, when, and why.

As towering an influence in media as he was, it's sad that once he was gone, the floodgates that held back news-as-entertainment opened and flooded us with crap like Fox News. Younger Americans avoid the evening news like the plague, and the Internet, not the networks, shape our perception of what's important and what we should care about.

All we have left of quality journalism can be found in a handful of sources. The New York Times; The Washington Post; National Public Radio, and PBS. Even 60 Minutes isn't what it once was. That's about it for consistently good reporting. At least we had Uncle Walter -- he was the man for the age. We won't be seeing his like again.