Walter Cronkite, the world’s most respected newsman, has died at the age of 92. Cronkite is a true legend. A real icon. A man of integrity, accuracy and fairness in his reporting. A man who deserved, and won, the respect of millions around the world. At one time a man who was called “the most trusted man in America.
Cronkite began his career in news as a teenage copy boy at the Houston Post while, at the same time, being a delivery boy for the paper. He wrote in his biography, “As far as I know, there were no other journalists delivering the morning paper with their own compositions inside”.
Although he had been a news reporter since 1936 he is best remembered as the CBS Evening News anchorman from 1962 until he retired from broadcast news in 1981 at age 65. And just as he ended every broadcast by saying, “And that’s the way it is” and then giving the date, he ended his on-air farewell statement with, “And that’s the way it is: Friday March 6, 1981”.
Cronkite was the first reporter to break the news of the assassination of President John Kennedy and remained our eyes and ears throughout the three days of coverage. He was enthusiastic in his coverage of our space program, and he was credited with bringing a wide range of reporting on the Watergate scandal to the American public, ultimately causing the resignation of President Nixon.
Cronkite rarely injected his own opinions in his broadcasts saying, “I am a news presenter..” “I feel no compulsion to be a pundit”. However, on the rare occasion when he did pronounce judgment the impact was big. After visiting Vietnam in 1968, he did a special broadcast on the war. He called it a stalemate and said there needed to be a negotiated peace. In effect, saying the war was un-winnable. Lyndon Johnson, who was president at the time, is quoted as saying, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost America”.
Cronkite continued to broadcast as a special correspondent and as a speaker and lecturer into the 21st century. After retiring as a television anchorman he spoke his mind on many subjects, including his condemnation of George Bush’s 2003 Iraqi invasion, Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition, and what he called “unethical and overtly political practices at the Fox News Channel”.
He was a humble man, perplexed by his immense popularity, who saw himself as an old-fashioned newsman. Although Walter Cronkite is a man deserving of all the media frenzy recently afforded Michael Jackson, Walter Cronkite is a man who would not have wanted it. “And that’s the way it is:” July 17, 2009
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