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RIP Walter Cronkite, the Most Trusted Man in America
Dalboz
Resident Puppy EaterRight behind you...Registered User regular
Resident Puppy EaterRight behind you...Registered User regular
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/17/walter.cronkite.dead/index.html
Probably his most famous moment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K8Q3cqGs7I
CNN wrote:Walter Cronkite, the CBS anchorman known as "Uncle Walter" for his easygoing, measured delivery and "the most trusted man in America" for his rectitude and gravitas, has died, CBS reported Friday.
Cronkite was 92 years old.
His career spanned almost the entire 20th century, as well as the first decade of the 21st. The native of St. Joseph, Missouri, broke in as a newspaper journalist while in college, switched over to radio announcing in 1935, joined the United Press wire service by the end of the decade and jumped to CBS and its nascent television news division in 1950. He also made his mark as an Internet contributor in his later years with a handful of columns for the Huffington Post.
He covered World War II's Battle of the Bulge, the Nuremberg trials, several presidential elections, moon landings, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Watergate scandal of President Richard Nixon's administration.
At times he even made news: A 1977 question to then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat about Sadat's intent to go to Israel -- at the time considered a nonstarter because of the lack of a treaty between the
two countries -- received a surprising "yes" from the Egyptian leader. Soon after, Sadat traveled to Jerusalem, a trip that eventually led to the Camp David Accords, which included a peace deal between Israel and Egypt.
At his height of influence as CBS anchorman, Cronkite's judgment was believed so important it could affect even presidents. In early 1968, after the Tet Offensive, Cronkite traveled to Vietnam and gave a critical editorial calling the Vietnam War "mired in stalemate."
Noting Cronkite's commentary, President Lyndon Johnson reportedly said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." Johnson announced he would not seek re-election less than two months later.
Cronkite's own name was often floated as a presidential possibility -- wishful thinking on the part of some pundits, because Cronkite had little desire to enter politics once he'd become a successful anchorman.
He became, however, an outspoken critic of what he saw as flaws in government -- and broadcast journalism. He disliked the current war in Iraq, telling Esquire magazine, "Indeed, we are in another Vietnam. Almost play by play. It's a terrible mistake that we're in Iraq, and it's a terrible mistake to insist on staying there."
And he disliked the corporatization of news.
"The nation whose population depends on the explosively compressed headline service of television news can expect to be exploited by the demagogues and dictators who prey upon the semi-informed," he wrote in his 1996 memoir, "A Reporter's Life."
In a 2005 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, he observed, "The misfortune with broadcasting today is that all -- even including your network, which is dedicated to the news -- do not take enough time to give us all of the facts and the background."
Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, on November 4, 1916. His father was a dentist, and Cronkite, who admired the man greatly, grew his famous mustache in emulation of his father.
The family moved to Kansas City soon after, and when he was 10, moved again to Houston, Texas. He remembered being attached to news at an early age, from delivering newspapers to starting a high school publication. Cronkite attended the University of Texas in Austin, but dropped out of college in 1935 after gaining a full-time job as a newspaper reporter.
He moved to Kansas City for a radio job at KCMO, where he was famed for his broadcasts of football game recreations. He would use wire reports about football games to broadcast what sounded like live, play-by-play commentary on the match.
It was in Kansas City that he also met his future wife, Betsy Maxwell, in the summer of 1936. The two married in 1940 and enjoyed almost 65 years of marriage. Betsy Cronkite died in 2005.
"She was one of the most beautiful people I ever saw in my life," he said in a PBS special. "I saw her for the first time ... coming down the hall ... and I fell in love before I ever knew her name, or what she did, or if I whether I would ever see her again in life."
Cronkite had a short stint with the United Press in 1937 -- "the KCMO experience," he wrote in "A Reporter's Life," "had cooled any thought I had that radio might be an interesting medium in which to practice journalism" -- but nevertheless, he joined an Oklahoma City station within a year to broadcast University of Oklahoma football games. After a detour with Braniff Airlines, he went back to the UP and the newspaper reporting he loved.
In 1942, following the United States' entry into World War II, he became a war correspondent, part of an elite corps of correspondents dubbed "the Writing 69th." As part of that unit, he accompanied a bomber on D-Day (the mission was thwarted by cloud cover) and flew on a number of dangerous sorties. After the war, he became the chief UP correspondent at the Nuremberg Trials for war crimes. He was widely admired; CBS tried to lure him into its Edward R. Murrow-led fold during the war, but Cronkite preferred being a newspaperman.
Cronkite opened UP's Moscow, Russia, bureau after the war, but when the wire service tightened up on his salary in 1948, he decided to go back to radio at the urging of a friend who owned a radio station. He was the Washington correspondent for a radio group. Two years later, CBS came calling again, and this time Cronkite took the network up on its offer.
But now the medium was television. Cronkite became the anchor of WTOP-TV, armed with little more than wire reports and his own skills, he recalled in his memoir.
Two years later, he broke into the national consciousness with his work at the 1952 political conventions, serving as CBS' "anchorman" -- a word coined to describe Cronkite's role as point person for the network's correspondents. Though there's some dispute as to who coined the word, Cronkite's influence was noted: in Sweden at the time, he recalled, anchormen were called "cronkiters."
But CBS News had a deep bench. The division was led by Murrow throughout the 1950s, and a number of other famous names -- Eric Sevareid, Douglas Edwards, Howard K. Smith -- were part of the team. Cronkite distinguished himself as CBS' lead space reporter as the United States and Soviet Union launched the space race. He never lost his taste for the beat, working with CNN on shuttle launches as recently as John Glenn's return mission in 1998.
In 1962, Cronkite took over as anchor of CBS' "Evening News" from Edwards. Television news was still in its infancy; the broadcast Cronkite delivered was 15 minutes long, dependent on sometimes day-old film and in black and white. But with the Cold War, civil rights movement and the increasing rapidity of communications, the news business was changing. On September 2, 1963 -- Labor Day -- Cronkite's broadcast became a half-hour; the centerpiece was an extended interview with President John F. Kennedy.
A little less than three months later, Kennedy was assassinated. Cronkite's coverage of that event, including a rare display of emotion on camera -- as he broadcast the news of Kennedy's death from the CBS newsroom -- helped cement his status.
However, for the first half of the 1960s, Cronkite's broadcast was No. 2 to NBC's "Huntley-Brinkley Report," hosted by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. It wasn't until later in the decade that Cronkite and CBS overtook the NBC team for the No. 1 position, a mark it would hold for the rest of Cronkite's 19-year tenure.
"Uncle Walter" increasingly became the most-admired figure in the news media. His sign-off, "And that's the way it is," became a national catch-phrase. His coverage of moon missions was legendary, with his ability to anchor, unperturbed, for hour upon hour, earning him the affectionate nickname "Old Iron Pants."
Another rare example of Cronkite showing emotion on air was the joy he expressed at Apollo 11's 1969 moon landing: "Man on the moon!" he exulted, rubbing his hands in delight.
In 1973, a poll named him "the most trusted man in America." The anchorman had been one of the few TV journalists to note the import of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's reporting on Watergate and helped prompt CBS into following the story aggressively. The network broadcast two extended segments and a special on the affair just before the 1972 election. Cronkite was helped immensely by CBS' then White House correspondent, Dan Rather, who became one of Nixon's least favorite reporters with his determined questioning at White House press conferences.
Rather's and Cronkite's lives would cross again several years later. By the end of the 1970s, television news had become news itself, with Barbara Walters' million-dollar ABC contract in 1976 making headlines. The race to succeed Cronkite, who was nearing 65 and announced his forthcoming retirement in 1980, became a national focus.
In the end, Rather won the battle to succeed Cronkite over Roger Mudd, who was Cronkite's regular fill-in. Cronkite gave his last "Evening News" broadcast on March 6, 1981. His successor had a number of up-and-down years, which Cronkite watched from a distance. The two anchors were not "especially chummy," Cronkite once said.
In his later years, Cronkite -- who became a CBS board member -- distinguished himself with various news specials, but was disappointed he wasn't allowed to take a greater role at CBS. "I want to say that probably 24 hours after I told CBS that I was stepping down at my 65th birthday, I was already regretting it. And I regretted it every day since," he once said.
He had planned to do documentaries for the network, as well as continue his summer science series "Walter Cronkite's Universe," but the series was canceled in 1982 and CBS was devoting fewer resources to documentaries. He also stayed physically active, an energetic tennis player and sailor.
Cronkite received dozens of awards during his life, including a number of Emmys and Peabodys. In 1981, he was awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by Jimmy Carter.
He also played himself in movies and on TV, including memorable episodes of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Murphy Brown."
But he never lost his zest for reporting, nor his opinions about the news media. His daughter, Kathy, played a Patty Hearst-like character in the scabrous 1976 movie "Network," a film Cronkite said "was all comedy" to him, though he shared beliefs in its message. He disparaged what he called "fluff" and constantly exhorted news departments to focus on hard news -- without opinion.
"Our job is only to hold up the mirror -- to tell and show the public what has happened," he once said.
Cronkite is survived by his three children, Nancy, Kathy and Walter III "Chip"; and many grandchildren.
Probably his most famous moment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K8Q3cqGs7I
Dalboz on
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Poor Walter.
The world became a little less interesting today.
How he broke the JFK assassination will never happen again. the 24 hr news cycle has been able to generate content even when none is available. So strange how things will never be.
wiki exerpt on it
At 1:40 PM, A "CBS News Bulletin" bumper slide broke into the live broadcast of As the World Turns (ATWT). Over the slide Cronkite began reading:
"Here is a bulletin from CBS News. In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting."
A second bulletin arrived as Cronkite was reading the first one, which detailed the severity of President Kennedy's wounds:
"More details just arrived. These details about the same as previously...President Kennedy shot today just as his motorcade left downtown Dallas. Mrs. Kennedy jumped up and grabbed Mr. Kennedy, she called "Oh no!," the motorcade sped on. United Press [International] says that the wounds for President Kennedy perhaps could be fatal. Repeating, a bulletin from CBS News: President Kennedy has been shot by a would-be assassin in Dallas, Texas. Stay tuned to CBS News for further details."
Just before the bulletin cut out, a CBS News staffer was heard saying "Connally too," apparently having just heard the news that Texas Governor John Connally had also been shot while riding in the Presidential limousine with his wife Nellie and Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy.
CBS then rejoined the telecast of As the World Turns during the show's first commercial break. A commercial for Nescafe coffee and a sponsor bumper for the first half of the show that had just completed were then aired, followed by a bumper for the scheduled episode of Route 66 to air that night and a ten second station identification break for the CBS affiliates. Just as ATWT was set to return from break, with show announcer Dan McCullough set to announce the sponsor of the second half of the program, CBS again broke in and was once again forced to use the bulletin bumper slide as the news staff was still waiting for the camera to warm up. In this bulletin Cronkite reported in somewhat greater detail about the assassination attempt, while also breaking the news of Governor Connally's shooting.
"Here is a bulletin from CBS News. Further details on an assassination attempt against President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. President Kennedy was shot as he drove from Dallas Airport to downtown Dallas; Governor Connally of Texas, in the car with him, was also shot. It is reported that three bullets rang out. A Secret Service man has been...was heard to shout from the car, "He's dead." Whether he referred to President Kennedy or not is not yet known. The President, cradled in the arms of his wife Mrs. Kennedy, was carried to an ambulance and the car rushed to Parkland Hospital outside Dallas, the President was taken to an emergency room in the hospital. Other White House officials were in doubt in the corridors of the hospital as to the condition of President Kennedy. Repeating this bulletin: President Kennedy shot while driving in an open car from the airport in Dallas, Texas, to downtown Dallas."
Cronkite then recapped the events as they had happened: that the President and Governor Connally were shot and in the emergency room at Parkland Hospital and no one knew their condition as of yet. He then reminded the viewers that CBS News would continue to provide updates as more information came in.
CBS then decided to return to ATWT, which was now midway through its second segment. The cast had continued to perform live while Cronkite's bulletins broke into the broadcast, apparently unaware of the developing story taking place in Dallas. ATWT then took its second scheduled commercial break. It would be the last anyone would see of the show- or for any normal broadcast television- until Monday November 25.
As he had twice before, Cronkite broke in with an audio-only bulletin accompanied by the (at least for that day) ever-present CBS News Bulletin bumper slide:
"Here is a bulletin from CBS News...President Kennedy has been the victim of an assassin's bullet in Dallas, Texas. It is not known as yet whether the President survived the attack against him."
This particular bulletin went into even more detail than the other two, as for the first time Cronkite detailed where the shooting victims were wounded (Kennedy had been shot in the head, Connally in the chest). At the conclusion of the bulletin Cronkite told viewers to stay tuned for further details, perhaps implying that the network would be returning to regular programming. However, Cronkite remained on the air for the next ten minutes continuing to read bulletins as they were handed to him, followed by recapping the events as they were known and interspersing the new information he'd received where it was appropriate. He also brought up recent instances of assassination attempts against sitting Presidents (including the murder of Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak in a botched assassination attempt on then-President-elect Franklin Roosevelt), as well as a recent attack of United Nations ambassador Adlai Stevenson in Dallas which resulted in extra security measures being taken for Kennedy's visit to the city. He also received word that Congressman Albert Thomas of Texas had been told that for the moment the President and Governor were still alive.
By 2:00 EST, Cronkite was informed that the camera was ready, and told the viewers over the air that CBS would be taking a station identification break so the affiliates could join the network. Within twenty seconds all the CBS affiliates (with the exception of KRLD in Dallas, who was covering the tragedy locally) joined the network's coverage of what was taking place. Cronkite appeared on-air in shirt and tie but without his suit coat, given the urgent nature of the story, and opened with this:
"This is Walter Cronkite in our newsroom in New York. There has been an attempt, as perhaps you know now, on the life of President Kennedy. He was wounded in an automobile driving from Dallas Airport into downtown Dallas, along with Governor Connally of Texas. They have been taken to Parkland Hospital there, where their condition is as yet unknown."
Cronkite then tried to throw to KRLD's coverage of the Dallas Trade Mart meeting that the President was supposed to address, but the camera was not ready. After a few seconds Cronkite started speaking again, but shortly after he had begun the broadcast abruptly cut into the aforementioned meeting where the station's news director Eddie Barker was reporting (a director was audibly heard saying "Okay, go ahead. Switch it" while Cronkite was talking). He said that the President was still alive (as Cronkite had been told by the report from Congressman Thomas earlier and directly by Congressman Jim Wright just moments before Barker's report was filed). About five minutes later Barker reported that rumors had begun to circulate that Kennedy was in fact dead.
Cronkite reappeared several minutes after Barker reported that Kennedy was rumored to have been killed, advising that two priests had been called to Kennedy's bedside although the reasons for which were not made clear. He also played an audio report by KRLD's Jim Underwood, recounting that someone had been arrested in the assassination attempt at the Texas School Book Depository. After said report, Cronkite was told that KRLD was reporting that that the President was dead and Barker was reporting that he had been told by a doctor at Parkland Hospital of the President's death. While the coverage continued at the Dallas Trade Mart meeting Barker said that the assassination was officially confirmed, but neither the Associated Press or United Press International had done so. He then retracted the statement, saying that it still had yet to officially be confirmed that the President was dead. Shortly thereafter CBS stopped showing KRLD's coverage and returned to their own coverage of the incident.
As he had been doing, Cronkite again reported the events as they were known. At 2:27 PM EST, word reached Cronkite of a report filed by Dallas bureau chief Dan Rather, which had stated that the President was dead but was unconfirmed. Rather's report had been originally given to CBS Radio, which relayed the report as if Kennedy actually was dead. There was some debate going on in the newsroom at the time whether or not to air said report. Cronkite delivered the news to the nation. Since Rather's report, as he had delivered it, only theorized that the President was dead and no word to that effect had come from any wire service (although Kennedy had died nearly thirty minutes before Rather's report was filed), Cronkite stressed that the report was not an official confirmation of the President's death and continued to report on the incident as if the President was still alive.
Further information: Timeline of the John F. Kennedy assassination
Cronkite later reported that the priest (Father Oscar Huber) called in to perform the Last Rites to the President did not believe that he was dead when he performed them, seeming to contradict what Barker and Rather had been reporting (and contrary to what Huber had told other reporters on the scene, as he had said Kennedy was dead when he entered the room to perform the Last Rites and had to pull back a sheet covering his body to perform them). Ten minutes later he received a report that the two priests who were with Kennedy were now saying that he was dead, declaring that it was as close to official as they could get. However, Cronkite continued to stress that there was no official confirmation of the death of Kennedy from the hospital (although his words seemed to indicate that this was the most likely outcome).
Cronkite then continued to report for the next several minutes while still waiting official word of the President's apparent death. While continuing to affirm that there was no official confirmation he reminded viewers that the priests, Rather, and several government sources were relaying word that in fact Kennedy was dead. At approximately 2:38 p.m. EST, Cronkite was remarking on the increased security presence in Dallas for the President's visit for fear of protests, bringing up the assault on Adlai Stevenson again. While Cronkite was speaking one of two news editors who had been standing by the newsroom's two wire machines pulled a bulletin from the Associated Press machine and began walking toward Cronkite's desk with it.
"Throughout the streets of Dallas, the Dallas Police have been augmented by some 400 policemen called in on their day off because there were some fears and concerns in Dallas that, uh...that there might be demonstrations, at least, that could embarrass the President. Because it was only on October 24 that our ambassador of the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, was assaulted in Dallas leaving a dinner meeting there..."
Just as he had said that, the editor handed Cronkite the bulletin. Cronkite stopped speaking, put on his eyeglasses, looked over the bulletin sheet for a moment, took off his glasses, and made the official announcement:
From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official: (reading AP flash) "President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time." (glancing up at clock) 2 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.
After making that announcement, Cronkite paused briefly, put his glasses back on and swallowed hard to maintain his composure. There was noticeable emotion in his voice as he intoned the next sentence of the news report:
"Vice President Johnson *cough* has left the hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where he has proceeded. Presumably, he will be taking the oath of office shortly and become the 36th president of the United States."
Siding with the powerless: Ideas from 60 years in journalism
Walter Cronkite
I hope we all get along as we go along. I expect that occasionally we'll have some differences of opinion. I expect to be provocative. After more than 60 years as a journalist, I have some ideas about the state of our nation, of our world, of our culture, and I wouldn't be true to the purpose of a column if I didn't vent them here.
My hope is that you will find my commentary interesting, informative, perhaps occasionally amusing (deliberately, that is), and, at all times, fair and as unbiased as it is possible for opinion to be.
You are going to disagree with me from time to time, and I'll be disappointed if you don't. That fulfills the provocative requirement of a column like this.
When the nation was deeply divided over the Vietnam War, we at CBS got a lot of mail complaining about our coverage. I was disturbed until we found out that the number of letters condemning us as being government lackeys in support of the war almost precisely balanced those condemning us as being sympathetic to the war protesters. I relaxed with the simple philosophy that if you are being shot at from both sides, you must be in the middle of the road.
Let's face this one down right now: I'm neither Republican nor Democrat. I'm a registered independent because I find that I cast my votes not on the basis of party loyalty but on the issues of the moment and my assessment of the candidates.
Basically I'm a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, but those who rabidly support those positions will be more often disappointed in my views than otherwise.
I believe that most of us reporters are liberal, but not because we consciously have chosen that particular color in the political spectrum. More likely it is because most of us served our journalistic apprenticeships as reporters covering the seamier side of our cities -- the crimes, the tenement fires, the homeless and the hungry, the underclothed and undereducated.
We reached our intellectual adulthood with daily close-ups of the inequality in a nation that was founded on the commitment to equality for all. So we are inclined to side with the powerless rather than the powerful. If that is what makes us liberals, so be it, just as long as in reporting the news we adhere to the first ideals of good journalism -- that news reports must be fair, accurate and unbiased. That clearly doesn't apply when one deserts the front page for the editorial page and the columns to which opinion should be isolated.
The perceived liberalism of television reporters, I am convinced, is a product of the limited time given for any particular item. The reporter desperately tries to get all the important facts and essential viewpoints into his or her piece but, against a fast-approaching deadline, he or she must summarize in a sentence the complicated story. That is where the slippage occurs and the summary too frequently, without intention, seems to emphasize one side or the other.
(The answer to that problem, as with much else in television news, is in more time for the dominant evening newscasts. In our ever more complicated and confusing world, those newscasts need an hour.)
Incidentally, I looked up the definition of "liberal" in a Random House dictionary. It gave the synonyms for "liberal" as "progressive," "broad-minded," "unprejudiced," "beneficent." The antonyms it offered: "reactionary" and "intolerant."
I've always suspected those fine folks at Random House of being liberals. You just can't trust anybody these days.
What I posted before was just an excerpt. You can see the whole thing as described in nine parts:
Part 1:
It's the only explanation.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
Underscores the magnitude of the loss. They don't make them like that anymore.
And while you can still watch the old video clips over and over again, the fact that we'll never get another interview with the man is very, very sad. I'm sure it's just me, and at the risk of sounding selfish, but of the recent 'celebrity deaths', this one upsets me the most.
Stupid, or genius?
Anyway, I can't help but be morbidly interested in how the media will treat this news. The juxtaposition of actual journalism with what we have now piques my curiosity.
PBS had a pretty good piece on him that they re-air periodically. Hopefully they put it up again now, and I can record a copy.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat