Mike Wallace made a few mistakes in his professional life but, overall, he was pretty close to the ideal journalist. I imagine even a lot of right-wingers should think so, even though they long ago convinced themselves that CBS and 60 Minutes were liberally-biased. I don’t think Mike Wallace could be fairly called a liberal unless you insist that reality has a well-known liberal bias. Nixon wanted Wallace as his press secretary, and the Reagans counted him as a close friend. He was a tough, tough, journalist, but he didn’t pull punches for one side or the other.
He died last night at the age of ninety-three. I hope his death provides people with an opportunity to review his career and gain some inspiration about how to be a great journalist.
Just read this news about an hour ago. I agree witcha about Mike Wallace. RIP to him.
Sure wish the excellence in journalism bled over to his son.
Who knows maybe his son will realize he is his father’s legacy and maybe decide to be the type of journalist his father was.
But I don’t expect it.
Sure wish the excellence in journalism bled over to his son.
I guess I never understood the gushing over Wallace, the elder. But be that as it may, if he really was that good, one could say the same thing in politics about Birch Bayh and his son, and George Romney and his son(aka Mr. Etch A Sketch).
Seemed to understand the word “integrity”, which is so lacking in Politics and Media today.
On a negative note: Seem like Sometimes, the acorn lands far from the tree, and the tree’s genes seem to fade the farther away the acorn lands!
“Integrity!!!???”
He was the prototypical PermaGov spinner. Well…maybe second generation…Cronkite was the first. His son? Mike without the grit.
60 Minutes? CBS? CIA tools since Operation Mockingbird.
Bet on it.
AG
.
You’ve never watched TV since the Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I only watched one of those debates, in point of fact, and not much of that one either. It was so obvious that Kennedy was going to be the winner that I walked out of the house and went to do something interesting. I don’t remember what it was, though…probably had something to do with sex or music. Not early, black-and-white media scam, for sure. They were already running the Vietnam ruse and I was already hip to their game, even in my mid-teens. It’s all been jive, Oui. All of it, at least as long as I have been consciously watching.
Which is why I stopped watching.
Long ago and far away.
I believe none of it.
None of it.
I haven’t since I stopped believing in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, pretty much.
Bet on it.
50 years and counting.
Kinda makes me the odd man out, I guess.
It’s a hard job, but somebody has to do it.
I’m elected.
They are all full of shit.
Everyone but the real thinkers, the real artists. And you don’t see them anchoring network news shows. They’re too busy telling the truth.
The truth doesn’t get high ratings, so no “60 Minutes” for them.
Bet on that as well.
Mike Wallace?
As fake as David Letterman’s laugh.
Same channel, too.
Disgusting.
AG
AG
Never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Just sayin’
Bet on it.
You betcha.
yassir.
How’s that Ron Paul man-crush comin’ along?
How’s my admiration for Ron Paul’s aims coming along? Better than your media addiction, I will guarantee.
Mike Wallace was an apologist for everything that is wrong with this country, dataguy. He was a smirking bully when he was at his best and a craven, ass-licking power worshiper at his worst. The simple fact that he supported the ludicrous Warren Commission in its whitewash of the JFK assassination is all you really need to know about him if you have any understanding whatsoever of what has happened to this country since that first shot was fired in the still ongoing coup d’état. The mass media act as the glue that holds the whole scam together, and no one…no one…gets to be in a position of such opinion-making power if they are not on board with the whole rotten story.
You don’t see this? Feel blessed. You have a lot of company. Sleep the sleep of the stupid. It’s what happens after dinner here in Omertica. We eat; we watch TV; we swallow everything we are told and then we go to bed.
Sleep tight. You’re gonna need the rest when the shit hits the fan. And it will, bubba. It will. It’s just a matter of when.
Watch.
AG
CAnt disagree about the MSM all falling in line about the Warren Report. Even the liberals on Msnbc and the few liberals on radio. Only the very late night radio hosts, usually of a conservative bent, are allowed leeway to explore the conspiracy. But that’s at 2 in the morning. Been this way for nearly fifty years now. Only the Internet is different but even there, at a few of the most popular sites for libs any conspiracy discussion is carefully controlled or discouraged.
As for Wallace though, I can’t blame him harshly for toeing the official line like the rest. The people at CBS who did the real damage to the truth about Dallas and to notions of free speech on that issue were the CEO Paley, the president of the news division (close friends with the architect of the Warren Commn, LBJ), and reporters Cronkite and Rather who combined for multiple bogus network reports over the years propping up the lone nut theory
while giving dissenting voices the back of their hand.
All Wallace did was deliver a soft interview with Clint Hill, the only SS man to react properly that day. I do fault MW for not asking obvious follow up Qs, but I doubt his corporate overlords, or Hewitt, would have allowed it to air.
I think Carl Bernstein in his famous RS article of 1977 identified Chairman Paley as a witting CIA asset, and so with that being the case nothing on Dallas differing from the official line was going to get reported. And Wallace while a usually tough interviewer was even more a non-bomb throwing company man who liked his job and the national attention it brought. He was never going to rock the boat and lose it all over a controversy the network had long since firmly noted had been settled and about which only crazy conspiracy theorists were complaining.
OH yes!!! He was a corporate creature who knew damned well on which side his bread was buttered. I object to the eulogies from people who shoud know better. He was no hero, he was just a good talking head.
So what? He did what he was told to do, and that’s that. Had he dropped dead at 55 the world would have been no different because some other talking head would simply have taken his place.
So it goes.
RIP, Mike.
But not in any place of great honor.
This story is all about a working stiff who hit the big time and the hordes of starfuckers who idolize success rather than real achievement.
So it goes.
Just as it always has.
Meanwhile, I suppose Noam Chomsky and Seymour Hersh have nice houses too.
There’s more than one way to make a fortune.
And Joe Bageant probably died broke or close to it.
There’s more than one way to not make a fortune as well, I guess.
Bet on it.
I prefer honesty, myself.
So it goes.
Later…
AG
“You know that it is going to be a BAD day when you see Mike Wallace outside your door with a camera crew.”
No one had to pretend that Mike Wallace was a great man on his death.