Walter Cronkite, May 12, 1970: "As news disseminators, nobody can touch us. And we have the best informed society in the world's history." He smiled wryly: "That's what worries the Establishment. No Establishment likes the people to be too well informed."

Then with a sigh, he said: "Our glaring weakness is as news gatherers. We are distinctly third-rate. without the newspaper news services, we'd die."