Walter Cronkite Criticizes Network Newscasts

Walter Cronkite has castigated producers of the network nightly newscasts for including stories about "your health

and mine and your backyard and mine and all that kind of thing" at the expense of more substantive reports. "It doesn't

belong in the evening news," Cronkite said during an interview on Texas Monthly Talks, which airs on Texas public

broadcasting stations. "We're the most important nation in the world ... and there are these other very important stories

in a very complicated world that we need to cover. We can't do that in 15 or 16 minutes." Apparently suggesting that the

television networks ought to dispense with commercials during their nightly newscasts, Cronkite remarked, "The networks

should be giving us the full half hour. ... It's ridiculous to have as little time as we have."

News Vine | March 25 2006