"The rule of thumb for all news operations is that stories are assigned their importance on the basis of what affects or interests the greatest numbe… - Walter Cronkite

"The rule of thumb for all news operations is that stories are assigned their importance on the basis of what affects or interests the greatest number of one's readers or viewers. Depending on the nature of the newspaper or broadcast, the balance between what "affects" and what "interests" is quite different. The first criteria of a responsible newspaper such as The New York Times is going to be that which their readers need to know about their world that day — those developments that in one way or another might affect their health, their pocketbooks, the future of themselves and their children. The first criterion of the tabloid is that which "interests" its readers — gossip, sex, scandal."

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About Walter Cronkite

Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. (4 November 1916 – 17 July 2009) was an American broadcast journalist, best known as the anchorman for The CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–1981).

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Birth Name: Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr.
Native Name: Walter Leland Cronkite
Alternative Names: Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr Walter Wilcox Old Ironpants Uncle Walter King of the Anchormen
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I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause – but examining each case on its merits. Being left of center is another thing; it’s a political position. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they’re not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If they’re preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can’t be very good journalists; that is, if they carry it into their journalism.

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What Alexander Hamilton wrote about the need for law among the 13 states applies today to the approximately 200 sovereignties in our global village: "To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages."

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