For millions of Americans in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, Walter Cronkite was the voice of sanity and reason, explaining the news of the day and putting those times into some sort of historical perspective.
He was among the handful of men who created, almost from scratch, the golden age of television journalism. And he was, not without good reason, often called “the most trusted man in America.”
When he died Friday, at the age of 92, not only did the nation lose a national treasure, but journalists everywhere lost one of the profession’s most important figures. Print journalists, especially, feel the loss as Cronkite came to television from the world of newspapers, with the sensibilities and upbringing of a devotee of the written word.
During World War II, he covered one major battle in Europe after another, including D-Day, as a reporter with United Press . Later, CBS News giant Edward R. Murrow tapped him as one of his correspondents, thus beginning Cronkite’s legendary broadcast career.
New Feature
Sign up for our newsletter e-mailed to you at 8 a.m. each day Monday through Friday.
At his heart, though, Cronkite was a print journalist; his sense of the duties and responsibilities of the press was nurtured at newspapers he worked for early on in his career. The public’s right to know. The duty of the journalist to present just the facts, telling the story fairly and objectively without personal opinion. The tenet that reporters work for the public, serving as the public’s eyes and ears, keeping watch over the people and institutions that run society.
They are the same professional standards that we in journalism today — including at The News & Advance — attempt to uphold.
After retiring as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News in 1981, Cronkite came to abhor what television news was quickly morphing into. The 24-hour news cycle prevented both reporters and the public from being able to take time to analyze the day’s events. News shows were quickly becoming more infotainment, “news you can use,” in the quest for ratings and advertising dollars.
The newsman who, in one 1972 broadcast with a simple set of graphics, elegantly connected the dots of the Watergate scandal for the American public castigated his successors for ignoring the difficult, complex stories in favor of the feel-good fluff pieces and the 30-second sound bites. MSNBC and Fox News, cable entertainment channels masquerading as news operations, are the antithesis of what he created at CBS.
For Cronkite, journalism was a sacred calling. It wasn’t about chasing the big story and snagging it before the competition. It wasn’t about beating the other guys to the big interview of the day. It was about serving the public, informing the public, watching out for the public’s interest.
He was — and is — the standard by which every journalist should measure himself.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement