Cronkite to Big Media: Clean up your act, sonny

Wired News reports here that the dean of American broadcast journalists, Walter Cronkite (they seem to have gotten the mistaken impression that there's an "h" in his last name), recently spoke at Columbia University to students and professionals about how today's news media are putting profit above craft and integrity. This should not be news (pardon the expression) to anyone actually paying attention, but one assumes that the owners and executives of the media megacorps are not to be counted in that number.

For decades, people didn't consider it news until they heard it from Uncle Walter on CBS weeknights around dinnertime. Will the media barons (and those in government who are supposed to be regulating them) listen to TV news' eminence grise? Time alone will tell whether the eternal verities of journalism continue to be trumped by the Nielsen/Arbitron ratings and the Wall Street averages.