Yeah, I miss the days of Walter Cronkite and Jules Bergman and Frank McGee. They were pros, and they took the coverage seriously, and treated it with respect. They took the time to become experts, but these days, except for Miles O'Brien/CNN and JimO/MSNBC keeping the tradition alive, what we get is empty-headed anchor fluff.

If I had the chance to edit, I'd have amended my post to say that "the moment belongs to the rocket and to Mission Control." I think the anchors are making the mistake of thinking that the voice from Mission Control is just another commentator, no more or less important than they are. But they forget that the words spoken by Mission Control become history too. "God speed, John Glenn!", "Ride, Sally Ride!", and of course "...a major malfunction...". The forlorn voice of Mission Control saying "Columbia, Houston....", over and over, needed no commentary. That story was told by silence.

Imagine, if a modern news anchor had been covering Apollo 11, we might have missed Armstrong's first words, drowned out by "color" commentary. Uncle Walter was in tears, but he was wise enough not to step on Mission Control saying "you gotta a lotta guys down here about to turn blue!".

Geez, when it comes to space flight, the stories tell themselves. You can only detract by trying to help the story along. Technical points sometimes need explaining, but the narrative has a life of its own.