What Happened to the News? From Walter Cronkite… to Sean Hannity – clip

Eric Alterman / CUNY

Would the great gatekeepers of the “old” media, Walter Cronkite, James Reston, Walter Lippmann, even recognize the media of today? How did we go from the guy who told us “That’s the Way It Is” every night on CBS to the screaming, propaganda spewing likes of Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson? What happened to the mainstream media that led it away from the attempt to give an objective picture of the day’s events to try to gin up outrage about just about everything? And what role did this transformation play in creating an opening for the campaign and presidency of Donald Trump?