Actually, it ended decades ago, but the passing of newscasting giant Walter Cronkite shows how much the world of news in general and broadcast news in particular has changed.

When I was a child and started watching the news regularly with my parents, Dan Rather was the anchor at CBS. Then I remember Tom Brokaw at NBC and Peter Jennings at ABC, and for my entire youth into adulthood, those three were the faces of news. By 1983, two years after Rather took over from Cronkite, anything that changed the world, those three guys gave to you.

I remember watching reports about the Iraq-Iran war from these guys, one of the consistent stories that seemed to be a daily bit for years.

But I had missed out on the prior generation's news, led by a single figure, who was rightfully known as the most trusted man in America.

Nowadays, it's a complete mess when it comes to the news, scattered across dozens of channels and showcasing shout-fests and opinionated pieces that are more comedy than news - with comedy that is more news than the news.

It makes sense that more people can provide more ideas, but something valuable has been lost.