Chances are that you have read, somewhere, the obituary of longtime CBS Evening News anchor, Walter Cronkite. He died yesterday at the age of 92.

When Glenn Beck, the host of Fox News’ Glenn Beck show dies in 2056, what will his obituary say?

I know many people are not concerned about that -and certainly not Glenn Beck. But if I were Glenn, I’d be concerned because as we remember the dead, we ought to reevaluate our lives, putting it in the contest of our time.

It is not for nothing that we are born at a certain time and we die at a certain time. The timing of our birth and death has something to do with the role we are to play in life.

Walter Cronkite’s death at this point signifies the death of news as we know it. The newspapers are dying but those who make a living from commentaries they make from newspapers stories are thriving. It is an unsustainable situation. Without the newspapers digging up the news, the talk shows, the bloggers and the TV shows will have less to work with.

Democracy is mortally tied to the press. The quality of the democracy any country has is directly proportional to the quality of the press it has. If the press is good, the democracy will be good. If the press is bad, the democracy will be bad. If the press is deranged the democracy will be deranged.

The grave polarization of the American society came about with the enthronement of the opinion over the news. People used to hear the news and make up their minds. Today, people do not hear the news. Instead, they are spoon-fed with read-made opinions. The trouble with it is that when you come to a personal conclusion, you leave room for doubts, but when you are force-fed with another person’s conclusion, you sealed any possibility of doubt. A person who makes up his mind based on the news is likely to arrive at different conclusions on several issues. But a person who is force-fed with opinions arrives at the same conclusion of the one doing the feeding. People have essentially become fools as a result.

Which brings me back to Glenn Beck.

If Walter Cronkite was America’s most trusted man, chances are that Glenn Beck will, in due course, become America’s most frightening man.

Cronkite was reassuring. Beck is scary. Cronkite was calm. Beck is panicky.

Cronkite was a newsman reluctant to express his opinion. Beck is an entertainer in love with advertizing his opinion.

With Walter Cronkite, ‘it is the way it is.’ With Glenn Beck, it is not the way it is.

Goodbye, Uncle Walter. Welcome Bro. Glenn.