I am writing a paper in which I am trying to gather evidence about how the media’s role shifted from being a neutral “interpreter”, if you will, of the news and delivering it as is before Nixon, to post-Nixon with more investigative journalism.
During the age of Walter Cronkite, the news media tended to have a very reserved role in the part they played covering the political landscape of presidents. The media seemed to reserve judgment, but purely informed the viewer from an unbiased standpoint of what was occurring. But during the watergate scandal, the media seemed to change their tone and took a more active role in creating news and uncovering new information, rather than just reporting what was known.
I have tried researching this, but I cannot really seem to find good sources. I was curious if anyone here had information about the contrast in media responsibility from pre-watergate to post-watergate.
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