If nothing else, Walter Cronkite's death on Friday at age 92 should remind us of how honorable and revered TV news was in his time and how dreadful and embarrassing it is today.

In Cronkite's era, TV news was about providing reliable and relevant information. Now it's little more than a venue for spreading rumors and gossip.

I mean, seriously, it probably won't be long before Nancy Grace gives up her nightly Michael Jackson rants on HLN and starts speculating about what drugs Cronkite took before he died, whether his doctors are to blame for demise and who will get custody of - oh, I don't know - his house plants.