On this day in 1973, Walter Cronkite announces the death of LBJ. Note the landline phone, analog watch, pencil and paper, and apparent lack of teleprompter. How times have changed.

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This post is a reprise of last year's remembrance, except that there's a lot more going on for the 40th. Michael Moore has a day-long livecast, you can follow slain student Allison Krause's sister Laurel on Twitter, and news media coverage is likely to be farther and wider. It's important that people also remember the events of Jackson State, a predominantly black college at which police killed 2 students and wounded 12 on May 14-15.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the anti-war protests at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. For those of you under 40, May4.org has the history recap:

On May 4, 1970 the Ohio National Guard opened fire into a busy college campus during a school day. A total of 67 shots were fired in 13 seconds. Four students: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, William Schroeder, and Sandra Scheuer were killed. Nine students were wounded.

Although I was in the first grade on May 4, 1970, I can't forget what happened in Kent, Ohio on that day.

I was there.

Not on campus, I was in first grade. In Kent, Ohio. My father and my mother's father were both faculty members at Kent. By 1970 my grandfather had retired from the Math Department. When he retired in 1968 he was the only math professor on record as opposing the War in Vietnam.

My dad, on the other hand, was in the Art Department. Nuff said.

We were rushed home from school that day in a panic of police sirens, smoke, and confusion.

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Since Walter Cronkite's passing, new focus has been put on the decline of legitimate news sources in America. The big three networks have fallen the way of the corporate cable news/propaganda networks and people are turning to alternate sources like The Daily Show to get a little truth with their news. That's why it came as no surprise that Jon Stewart was voted Most Trusted Newscaster In America in a recent Time poll.

Here's the breakdown of the results:

Jon Stewart - 44%

Brian Williams - 29%

Charles Gibson - 19%

Katie Couric - 7%

Not to take away from Stewart's accomplishments, but it does speak volumes about the way the American people view the major networks and their "news" departments -- and that they would take the word of a comedian more seriously than high profile, highly paid network news anchors.

Stewart has long taken on the corporate media, beginning with his notorious smackdown of the feckless Tucker Carlson on CNN's Crossfire in 2004, which lead to the eventual demise of the show. Since then, he has been relentless in his pursuit of the truth, and C&L has been posting videos from The Daily Show for years, along with many other blogs, big and small.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10cBrian Williamswww.thedailyshow.com

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The unctuous Brian Williams tells Jon Stewart how much he looked up to Walter Cronkite - "He was a man I wanted to be" - and Stewart responds: "How does it feel, to fall so short?"

Smackdown!

Stewart then asks, "Do you think Walter Cronkite would be happy with what he sees in the news now?" Williams says yes, except for ... well, a lot of stuff that Cronkite didn't like about today's news biz.

And really, that's what it's all about, isn't it? All these media types and politicians paying tribute to a man who would absolutely horrify them if he were still alive - and still practicing journalism.

Instead, we have journalism by sound bite, by press release, by chummy relationships and the search for access.

Yes, heroes are much better when they're dead and gone, and not annoying career talking heads who aspire to gravitas without earning it.

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RIP Walter Cronkite, 1916 - 2009

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He seems surprised that Drudge would post "fiction."What is wrong with these people? Eric Boehlert on " The Walter Cronkite of our Era "