Walter Cronkite, “who personified television journalism for more than a generation as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News,” died after a prolonged illness at his home in New York on Friday. He was 92.
Alas, despite being a news junkie, I am too young to fully appreciate the eulogies to Cronkite that were popping up all over television last weekend. Indeed, nothing demonstrates how little his name resonates today quite like the fact that not even CBS could emulate the 24/7 coverage it dedicated to the death of Michael Jackson.
That said, it speaks volumes that Cronkite commanded so much respect as a journalist that nobody seems to have taken issue with him being heralded in his day as “the most trusted man in America.” Can you imagine the same being said of anyone in the media today…? Hell, not even the Pope seems worthy of such acclaim….
At one time, his audience was so large, and his image so credible, that a 1972 poll determined he was “the most trusted man in America” – surpassing even the president, vice president, members of Congress and all other journalists.
(CBS tribute to Walter Cronkite)
Of course, I’ve seen enough footage of his reporting on seminal events in US history to understand the reasons for his acclaim. Most notable in this respect was the empathy he showed during coverage of the Kennedy (JFK) assassination and the curious combination of child-like fascination and unbridled jingoism he exhibited during coverage of America’s race to the moon – when he stayed on the air for 27 of the 30 hours it took the astronauts of Apollo 11 to complete their mission.
(Incidentally, today marks the 40th anniversary of that landing on the moon….)
But what stands out for me in Cronkite lore is the role he played in exposing the big lie the US government was telling in the late-1960s about winning the war in Vietnam. Because all it took was for this most trusted man in America to report as follows – after investigating the state of that war first-hand from the front lines in 1968:
It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is a stalemate.
In fact, Cronkite’s report incited so many erstwhile gullible Americans to join anti-war protests that President Lyndon Johnson was forced to concede that, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost America.” And sure enough, even though the war dragged on for another four years, the primary objective of America’s involvement in Vietnam after Cronkite’s report was finding a way to retreat with honor.
On the other hand, you’d be hard pressed to find in all of these eulogies any reference to the ignominious way CBS forced Cronkite into early retirement in order to give his anchor chair to upstart Dan Rather in 1981. And even though this allowed him to indulge in his favorite passion full time (at the helm of his sailing boat), reports are that Cronkite never got over his resentment at being fired so unceremoniously.
At any rate, here’s how I referred to this usurpation when I commented on the fulfillment of the karma Rather wrought in this respect:
Unlike the graceful exit of his rival and fellow news dinosaur, NBC’s Tom Brokaw, Dan will not enjoy a fond farewell. Instead, in unseemly and spiteful form, his fellow colleagues at CBS have been leading a chorus of critics in dancing on his professional grave as they bid him a gleeful good riddance.
Why? Well, Dan seemed utterly uninterested in winning friends as he climbed the network ladder to the Anchor’s chair. And, he outraged not only his colleagues but all of America by usurping Walter Cronkite – “the most trusted man in America” – from that chair in very churlish fashion.
[Dan Rather pushed off his anchor’s chair, TIJ, March 9, 2005]
And that’s the way it was….
Farewell Walter
NOTE: To read why I felt compelled to write a public thank you to Sir Robin Auld on behalf of all citizens and permanent residents of my mother country, the Turks and Caicos Islands, click here.
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Dan Rather pushed off his anchor’s chair
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