What if it's actually the web that needs saving? And what if it's higher education that is best suited to save it?

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Twenty-seven million to 29 million viewers, on average, tuned in every night to hear Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News.

"His ratings on the day he left the 'Evening News' were bigger than all three network newscasts together today," Socolow said. "He had an average rating of 27 million to 29 million viewers."

In the mid-1960s, approximately 90 percent of televisions in use at the dinner hour were turned to one of the network newscasts. And by 1980, their combined audience peaked at 52.1 million viewers. By contrast, in 2011, according to the Pew Research Center, only about 22 million viewers watched them, and their share of the television audience at the dinner hour had declined to 29 percent. This is why the Cronkite era is widely regarded as television news’s “golden age.” While he occupied the anchor’s chair, many more Americans watched news programs broadcast by the networks, and those programs were more serious and substantive than television news today.