If you like me grew up with a hardcore journalist for a father, chances are you hero-worshipped Walter Cronkite’s legacy and went  to school just so you could be like him.

I did but I never was.

Studying Cronkite’s  style of news delivery at Emerson, waiting in a long line that curled all the way  to Newberry Street in Boston just to hear him speak made me realise the importance of not doing things by half measure and taking great pride in the any  work you do just because it matters. 

It’s not for applause.

 It’s not for any feelings self importance. 

You deliver good work because as Cronkite’s brand of journalism indicated, it is the singular coin of communion that has real and long-lasting value.

Today’s fragmented media landscape may mean that we will never have another anchor/ journalist with the title, “Most trusted in the world.”

Too bad.

Because in a world where reliance is as scarce as the truth, more than ever Cronkite’s coin is needed.

 Eons ago, when I told my father I rather be in PR than journalism, you could tell he was disappointed. As an old time newspaper and radio man who  lived for the fact that the media held power to account and allowed the  truth to prevail then  you can understand why he furrowed his brows at my decision. In his world PR was the anti-christ, the  antithesis of good reporting.

Back then of course PR wasn't viewed as a serious and rigorous area of study. Three degrees, one firm and several heated conversations after I feel that before he died (8 months ago)  I was  finally able  to convince him otherwise. His continuous debate with me about the merits of my work grew less impassioned, more reasoned. As time went by his brows stopped being furrowed.

As I look on aghast at the current economic free fall,  as I see how our political leadership  has  surrendered to expediency and how principles get tethered on a foundations of sand, I am glad both professions exist side by side.

We need the media to hold leaders accountable whether in government or  business and we need PR to stand for  truth, continuous dialogue, transparency and outreach. 

I think, in the end, my father would have agreed.

I think they are. And it  is not slow and protracted but rather quite  fast and  painful.  And like any disease it's spreading to other parts of the whole. TV and radio no doubt are feeling the pinch.

 There is only one reason why. Okay.  Make that two.  Printing and publishing are an expensive business; Web 2.0 is not. 

  The new media tools are faster, more pervasive, more instantaneous  reaching  millions more quickly than it takes for your eyes to scan this line. Still not a believer? Look a the recent headlines. Last week when  U.S. Airways jet was allegedly attacked by a "double bird strike" and the pilot forcibly water ditched in New York's Hudson River the first on the scene was not CNN or ABC or NBC or CBS. Instead Heather Dueitt, Dennis Stratton, and Janis Krums got the scoop. Janis in particular had the world's first and most memorable photograph taken from an angle that was almost surreal.

 Click their names. Check their Twitter streams. Go back to the day. Check out the tweets at   3:30 p.m. on January 15, 2009. Google them and read the rest. 

 This was yet another turning point in how news is delivered. Still surprised? I am not sure why, a few days after, when President Obama was inaugurated millions, including me, tuned into on cnn.com/live. With its outreach to facebook and the live constant updates from friends and strangers, this was broadcasting at its best except this was a new medium. Live TV had shifted and the movement was seismic. The inauguration became  a social/interactive experience,  136 millions viewers didn't just watch they participated  and it underscored the power of the Internet to deliver video programming to a massive number of users simultaneously.

 I am not sure if the newspapers here at home get these new shifts and if they do, they certainly  don't  embrace the qualities that make it unique, numbers driven. I can't think of nay media house that doesn't have a website, but with the exception of one, there is little social interactivity with the new tools.  The Express has made some inroads but their great experiment with Interactive TV is long dead. CNMG's interactive site is two, now maybe three  weeks old. And there are no media houses with blogs. As for Twitter and using it within media fraternity, after a quick check with my friends who still write for the news, we may as well be landing Manning on the moon.

 Meanwhile  our best and most treasured newspapers are getting thinner. The best writers are leaving for PR and other independent pastures. And people are tuning out.  There is a   way to stop the bleeding but it requires foresight, quick action and willingness for old media to stop denying the existence of  the new.