The Fourth Estate is Crumbling

[DFW]

11. My father was a proud and distinguished member of that fourth estate

With the advent of Fox "News," he saw it start to deteriorate, and saw the danger signs as he was wasting away from pancreatic cancer in 2000. He was cited in the Congressional Record by members of BOTH parties for his dedication and fairness, and was elected to the presidency of the Washington Gridiron Club, one of the most strenuous--and fun--gigs a DC journalist can ever have. My siblings and I divvied up the letters and photos with inscriptions of appreciation when his memorabilia was given to us when he passed. From before Bobby Kennedy, Sr., a personal friend, to Bill Clinton, who was POTUS when he was Gridiron president, and a LOT of before and in-between, he never diverged from the path of the task of the journalist--to inform. Think what you want, but never lie--not to your readers. This has been trashed, perverted, abandoned. Maybe it's best that he never saw the full extent to which his profession has been transformed for the worst. He thought the low point had been reached right around the time he died, which was right before Rehnquist, O'Connor, Thomas and Scalia handed the presidency to Cheney and Bush, egged on by the increasingly right wing press. That might have hurt him worse than the cancer that killed him. A World War II vet, he probably handled his own demise far better than he could ever have handled the demise of his profession.