The New York Times:

Did the bill pledging federal funds for the health care of 9/11 responders become law in the waning hours of the 111th Congress only because a comedian took it up as a personal cause?

And does that make that comedian, Jon Stewart — despite all his protestations that what he does has nothing to do with journalism — the modern-day equivalent of Edward R. Murrow?

Certainly many supporters, including New York’s two senators, as well as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, played critical roles in turning around what looked like a hopeless situation after a filibuster by Republican senators on Dec. 10 seemed to derail the bill.

But some of those who stand to benefit from the bill have no doubt about what — and who — turned the momentum around. …

Mr. Bloomberg, a frequent guest on “The Daily Show,” also recognized Mr. Stewart’s role.

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Walter Cronkite passed away a few days ago and pardon me for not joining the wailing and gnashing of teeth of the professional media mandarins.  The fact is that Cronkite was an over-praised meat puppet, a doctrinaire liberal-left talking head who never once uttered a word that would have caused so much as a sigh of consternation in the Manhattan media environs he dwelled in. 

Except among his loved ones, the hoopla that has accompanied his passing has nothing to do with Walter Cronkite the man and everything to do with Walter Cronkite the symbol.  He symbolized a time – “The Golden Age” to hear the wistful liberals tell it – of a solid, unconquerable media monolith that passed judgment on What Is The News and defined Socially Accepted Opinion. 

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Oh, those glorious days of yesteryear, when those drooling slobs without the education or breeding to live in New York and work at the Times or at one of the three networks would genuflect before their black and white TV sets every evening and await Mr. Cronkite to bestow upon them The Truth!  Now (sigh), it’s chaos, with too many different media outlets and too many different opinions.  It’s gotten out of (our) control! 

Come back, Walter, and save us from Fox News! (more…)

I remember when the term investigative journalism used to mean something. My first introduction to it was through Peter Maas’ seminal classic The Valachi Papers at the tender age of eleven. Hooked me right away. A year later, at the age of twelve,  I devoured William L. Shirer’s monumental and award-winning ‘Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany.’ A very heady 1250 pages of fine print in paperback, and I do mean fine print. Worth its weight in gold.

From that point on, I was addicted. I couldn’t get enough of Peter Maas, Robin Moore, Woodward and Bernstein, Nick Pileggi, Ovid Demaris, James Bamford, James Michener, Cornelius Ryan, anything from the Ballantine Espionage/Intelligence Library, and too many others to list here.

I only recently read Michener’s The Bridge at Andau, an account of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising based on hundreds of eyewitness accounts, written in novelized form to protect identities at the time. It takes you right into the chaotic and revolutionary Bupapest of the day as though you were there. (more…)