New York, NY— The recent swirling hypotheses surrounding the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, along with a continuous stream of yellow journalism from online media outlets ranging from “You Will Never Believe What Happens When This Child Opens a Jar of Peanut Butter” to “15 Reasons Why You Should Read This Article,” has lead to the emergence of one of the last great newsmen of our time to bring us back to journalistic integrity: Walter Cronkite.
Early this morning, the ghost of Walter Cronkite emerged from a news anchor desk in New York during a live broadcast and proceeded to slap the shit out of anchor Larry Blitzer during his segment on how frontwoman Courtney Love of the band Hole has figured out what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. After the beating, Cronkite’s ghost took the anchor chair to deliver an address on the state of journalistic integrity, and the news itself.
“There was a time when being a newsman meant something. It was a time when an event would happen, and we would report it to the public,” stated the ghost of Cronkite. “There was no editorializing, or mockery, or twisting of words. There was the goddamned news. The people of the world could use it as they saw fit, but it was our job, as journalists, to deliver it in the most factual, unbiased way possible.”
“Now, everyone considers themselves a newsman or newswoman,” continued the ghost of Cronkite. “News outlets scour the media for real news, repackage it to fit their needs, and re-release it to the public, usually shortened and drained of its integrity. I remember when I’d fly around German airspace in a B-17 during World War II to get the news. Now they attach a goddamn GoPro and figure out the story from the footage later.”
“And that’s if we’re lucky,” the ghost of Cronkite continued. “Sometimes it’s just a list of facts that barely has to do with the subject. Fancy that. David Letterman, an entertainment talk show host, has influenced the way the news is delivered. Or it’s just a bunch of colorful pictures and random memes. The less words to read, the better.”
“In fact, the most detailed reporting comes not from the events from around the globe that affect our lives, but why Kate Winslett named her fucking kid ‘Bear Blaze.’ Really? That’s what the public needs to know about? It is because of these perversions of the news that I have decided to return to a news desk, to give the world a true depiction of the news once again,” the ghost of Cronkite added. “Democracy, civilization itself, is at stake.”
“And that’s the way it is. March 18th, 2014,” stated Cronkite in closing. “That’s the painfully self-aware way it is.”