Speakers complained that news coverage essential for an informed electorate is in serious decline. I m concerned that democracy is slowly dying of oxygen deprivation. Moyers said news coverage of education and the environment has declined while coverage of stories on entertainment has greatly increased. Cronkite, former managing editor and anchor of CBS Evening News, said top management at TV networks today consists of entertainment, marketing and sales people who no longer view news departments as independent operations. He said polls show that most people get their news from TV and he said most people are not adequately informed.
Democracy depends entirely on the information that can be transmitted by a free press.
It is always ignorance that will bring down democracy. In Cronkite s view, the number of U.S. citizens participating in national elections has declined because they are not getting the sort of information that would inspire them to show up and vote. Cronkite said without a majority of voters participating in elections, the U.S. does not have functioning a democracy in the sense of a nation governed by majority rule. Cronkite also warned that entertainment and marketing people have been cutting budgets, bureaus and resources devoted to international news so much that the quality of news coverage has been damaged.