Broadcast journalism came of age in 1940 when Edward R. Murrow stood on a London rooftop to describe the scene to his listeners in America as German bombs fell around him.

In 1943, with the United States in the war, another legend to be, 27-year-old Walter Cronkite of the United Press, was one of eight reporters who regularly underwent enemy antiaircraft fire as they flew aboard Army Air Corps B-17s on their bombing raids over Germany. Also on board was Cronkite's future CBS colleague Andy Rooney, from the Army newspaper "Stars and Stripes." They made light of the harrowing assignment, calling themselves "the Writing 69th."

Years and wars later, Cronkite, by then considered America's most trusted journalist, would risk both his life and reputation to return to a war zone in order to report on the failure that was Vietnam.

And now we are left with Brian Williams, the pretend Murrow or Cronkite telling war stories about himself that weren't true. What began with Murrow and "This is London" has deteriorated to Williams and what wasn't Iraq.

Williams is beginning a six-month suspension as anchor of the NBC Nightly News with little likelihood he will ever be back. There were reports, not denied, that NBC officials knew of Williams' deceit months, maybe years ago, but did nothing in order to protect the franchise.

But it really doesn't matter anymore because, as Maureen Dowd pointed out in her Sunday column on Williams, the network news anchors are no longer the figures of authority they once were: "They are part of the entertainment, branding and cross-promotion business," she wrote, in TV news that is "now rife with cat, dog and baby videos, weather stories and narcissism."

There's no argument here, from someone who spent nearly 40 years doing news, editorials and news related documentaries at a CBS-affiliated station. For too many of those years and the 16 years since my retirement, television news has been dominated by the profit motive and consultants, often failed news executives, who preach the false journalism dogma of giving viewers what they want.

At the networks, they still attract aging audiences with frequent health reports, so-called medical breakthroughs, visually exciting natural and man-made disasters and stories that raise the spirit. In fairness, there's sometimes actual news in nearly the entire 22-minute newscasts, but not often.

And if you want further proof of the aging of the news audience, count the commercials whose most common words are "ask your doctor about" this prescription or that, with government mandated lists of dreadful side effects and words of caution about that inconvenient condition lasting more than four hours.

On local news, we have those oft repeated weather forecasts and the easily reported murders, fires and accidents. News that is complicated and difficult to explain without pictures is mostly discouraged and avoided.

The news that had the most impact this month on the more prized segment of the television audience wasn't about Williams. It was Jon Stewart's announcement he'll be stepping down as host of cable's "The Daily Show" by the end of the year. That's because Stewart's so called fake news, which sometimes seems to have more substance than the real kind on real newscasts, has become the news of choice for the young.

And when the young get older - as they tend to do - there is some danger their taste for fake news won't change that much.

Stewart, with his satirical take on the day's news, its newsmakers and news presenters, gives us a nightly op-ed page, opinion laced with pungent investigative reporting that exposes the hypocrisy of both the political class and those who cover it.

Dowd was right when she wrote that while the fake news people were doing more serious stuff and making it interesting and appealing, the supposedly serious news guys were doing more performing. "As the late night comic anchors got more pointed and edgy with the news, the real anchors mimicked YouTube."

If you think she exaggerates, consider how often you've seen an anchor introduce an Internet stunt, usually with a cute animal, baby or both, that, they tell us, "has gone viral."