Walter Cronkite died tonight in New York. He was 92. He was often called the most trusted man in America and through much of the turmoil of the mid-Twentieth century, he was America’s first choice for television news. He evolved with the medium, which was still young in 1963 when he announced the death of a young president.
If he was a natural at shaping the medium, it might have been because he was recruited to CBS by Edward R. Murrow, who almost single-handedly shaped radio field reporting with his reports from a rooftop in London during the Blitz. “This is London,” Murrow would begin, pausing after the word “this” before proceeding to describe what he saw and to let America hear what he heard. At the time, it was revolutionary.
In 1952 Cronkite was working at WTOP, the CBS TV station in Washington, DC. It was the first year the Democratic and Republican National Conventions were televised and in July of that year, a word was coined to describe Cronkite’s role during the conventions: anchor. And anchor he did, all through his career, during Vietnam, Watergate, more assassinations, race riots and the historic moon landing in 1969. He was always a space buff — NASA honored him three years ago — and still seemed in awe of the landing when he recalled it, with file footage, decades later.
Some will no doubt say an era has ended, but I believe the beginning of the end of the era came when Murrow left the network after his landmark 1960 documentary, Harvest of Shame, about migrant farm workers. It was furthered when Cronkite relinquished the anchor chair for a retirement from daily duties but not from journalism and when CBS founder Bill Paley died and when Larry Tisch, who cared only about the bottom line, bought CBS and cut the news division to the bone.
Walter Cronkite was always substance over flash, always fair and calm. Even people who watched other networks knew he closed each night’s broadcast with, “And that’s the way it is.” He was referred to as “Uncle Walter” and described as “avuncular” so frequently some of us learned the word because of it. His style of journalism was born in another century and died there too. Perhaps we’re all losers for that.
Rest in peace, Uncle Walter.
