Farewell Walter Cronkite

Philip Stone July 21, 2009 Follow on Twitter

If Walter Cronkite said it then you knew it was so. It was as simple as that. Seldom in broadcast journalism has one man earned the confidence of a nation, but when Walter Cronkite reported the news America believed him. He died Friday at age 92 after a retirement -- all depends really how you define retirement -- of some 30 years.

Forty years ago The CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite was required viewing in America if you wanted to know what was really going on in the world, unlike today when you’re lucky if a network newscast carries a single foreign news report. But in the 1960s CBS began its half-hour news program with Cronkite sitting at his desk waiting to start his newscast and an announcer would read the overlay of all the stories there would be in that half hour, and usually the majority carried foreign datelines.  

In those days of America at war three or four of those stories probably came daily from Vietnam, all with different correspondents. How many correspondents do CBS, NBC, or ABC have permanently staffing Afghanistan these days, yet there are more than 50,000 US troops stationed there. It’s not only that comparison to show how much things have changed -- today the networks have shut most of their foreign bureaus save for London and the Middle East – for some even Moscow goes unstaffed.

Vietnam was of course the story of the 1960s and 1970s. Cronkite decided he needed to see for himself what was going on and he was shocked by what he saw and reported such to the American people.  President Lyndon B. Johnson said he knew then the public opinion tide had turned against the war. Instead of “We must win the war” It became “We must end the war with honor.” Cronkite was that trusted.

It was Cronkite who interviewed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat live on his newscast and he seemed as shocked as anyone when Sadat said he would travel anywhere in pursuit of Middle East peace, even to Israel. Cronkite immediately smelling an exclusive asked Sadat directly whether he would go to Israel if he was invited and he again said “yes”.

Within weeks there were the live shots of ultra conservative Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin welcoming Sadat to Ben Gurion Airport, followed later by Sadat’s address to the Israeli Parliament in a full state visit. Watching Sadat and Begin together, one would have thought they were two long-lost brothers. An Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty followed (they each earned the Nobel Peace Prize).  It was one of those events that many said would never happen “in my lifetime” but it got its start with a Cronkite live interview. Would it have happened without?

And who will ever forget Cronkite who for a split second lost his composure as he reported to America, those days in black and white,  that President John F. Kennedy was dead, assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle in Dallas. Cronkite bit his lip, was that a tear he wiped away as he removed his glasses? After a short silence he continued.

Even before he became the CBS news anchor Cronkite was very well known as “the voice” of the 20th Century – a half-hour documentary series. It was a Sunday viewing ritual much as 60 Minutes is today. Even then that voice made the reporting of modern history so authoritative.

CBS got Cronkite to anchor the news because the network was tired coming in second to NBC’s Huntley and Brinkley Report. On Cronkite’s first night the NBC pair wished “Good Luck” on-air to their new competitor. If they had known how good he was going to be they might have had second thoughts.

In recent years after retirement, Cronkite has given lectures, he has fronted the PBS presentation of the annual Vienna New Year’s Day Philharmonic Orchestra concert, and he has appeared from time to time as a pundit on such shows as Larry King.

Although a broadcast man at heart Cronkite also loved the newspaper business (at one time he was a United Press International reporter).  He was fearful for what newspaper cutbacks and closings would mean to American democracy.

Three years ago he told students at Colombia University that public media companies were succumbing to the needs of Wall Street instead of serving their readers. He said that newsroom cutbacks attacked the very fabric of the freedom of the press. Journalists “face rounds and rounds of job cuts and cost cuts that require them to do ever more with ever less. In this information age and the very complicated world in which we live today, the need for high-quality reporting is greater than ever. It's not just the journalist's job at risk here. It's American democracy. It is freedom,” he told the gathering of professors and students.

Cronkite ended every newscast with “And That’s The Way It Is”, and you knew it was.

He has never really been replaced – Katie Couric is fine but she’s no Walter Cronkite -- and it’s doubtful we’ll see again anyone else who carries such charisma, such character, such trustworthiness.

Farewell Walter.

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