Former CNN talk-show host Larry King appeared on the Dan Patrick sports-radio show last Friday. After a lot of talk about baseball and how to do interviews, Patrick closed out the segment by asking about social media’s effect on journalism. King offered the standard liberal answer, stuffed with nostalgia for the halcyon days of ultraliberal monopoly on network news, with ABC, CBS, NBC, and maybe PBS. (A weird answer from a CNN star, right?) It came at 8:35 in this video:
DAN PATRICK: Finish this sentence: Because of the creation and popularity of social media, journalism has become -- what?
LARRY KING: Worse. I think we were better off with maybe four networks, five networks – this is on the news angle....I think we were better with Huntley-Brinkley, Cronkite. I think things got covered better. I think investigative reporting was better. We get the information faster, quicker, but it doesn’t mean we get it better. However, this I’ve learned in my 83 years, you can’t turn the clock back.
NBC's Huntley-Brinkley Report ran from 1956 to 1970. Chet Huntley died in 1974.
Before that, Patrick asked if he could grant King one big interview, who would it be? King offered another classic liberal answer: "My wish was Fidel Castro, and he passed away." So he said now it would be German leader "Anna [Angela] Merkel."
