Vancouver - March 1992

Robert MacNeil - January 19, 1931 (Montreal) - April 12, 2024

When I met newsman Robert MacNeil in March 1992 I faced an affable and happy man who instantly became interested in the fact that I was Argentine and that I had been in the Argentine Navy as a conscript.

He smiled wide when I told him that from 1958 until 1961 when I was attending a Roman Catholic boarding school, St. Edward’s High School in Austin, Texas that our two favourite TV programs were Have Gun Will Travel and watching Walter Cronkite.

Looking back at that, I think of his quote in today’s New York Times (I scanned my hard copy obituary and it is below), “Television has changed journalism, utterly, not just for television, but for print and everybody else. ‘It’s changed the whole culture and ethos of journalism. And to have been able to hold the line – perhaps Canutelike – against the tide that’s going to engulf us all in the end, for a few years, has been a source of gratification for me.” 2000/2001Archive of American Television. I think that this quote is what makes us now mistrust news information.

Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and Robert MacNeil would now be seen as boring.

Boring  news had weight.