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All time, my favorite was "Uncle" Walter Cronkite, though he went off the air well before most of you were born. He was a real news guy, managing editor of the CBS evening news, and in those days, the news was actually investigated and reported, not just regurgitated from official press briefings. He had an even-handed approach to the news, and he handled some of America's biggest triumphs and tragedies in a way that was both no-nonsense and sensitive. In those days, anything your hear on the street wasn't considered real until Walter Cronkite said so.
Of the guys around today, I'd say Jon Stewart. He asks the questions that nobody else does. Journalism is caught in a reactionary mode: first, there's the myth of objectivity, which states that you can't report anything but what was said to you, no matter how stupid you know it is. Second, what with cable news and the Internet there is no longer a lead time to develop stories, so they go out without fact checking. If Senator Thus-and-So says something, it's reported flatly. Few journalists check it against the facts, or whether he's contradicting himself.
The Daily Show is satire, but it is valuable because it does the one very important thing that journalism now fails to do -- it actually evaluates what is said and points out stupidity, lies, and self-interest wherever it sees them. The press was supposed to the be the guardian of a free society. But among daily TV news shows, only the Daily Show -- a "fake news show" -- has the guts to really do the job anymore.
I see from the poll result that Stewart is in the lead -- no surprise. Most of the users here are under 25, and when I've talked to high-school/college age people about where they get their news, the Daily Show comes up again and again.
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