On This Date in 1968:

More Cronkite

His memorial service is being carried live by CBS.

Meanwhile, like many other observers, Gene Lyons mourns the end of professionalism which Cronkite's death marks:

Two big things about Cronkite and his times made him different from today's multimillionaire news celebrities. First, he came up as a print journalist, covering ball games, school fires, city council meetings and the Texas state Legislature. He knew a fact from an opinion, how to distinguish a reliable source from the other kind and how to construct an airtight story. He was a news professional, devoted to craft. I suspect he'd have walked off the set rather than devote an entire newscast to a pop singer's death, never mind entire weeks.

Second, Cronkite grasped the purely arbitrary aspects of TV celebrity. Fame never went to his head. In retirement, he conducted a long-running feud with CBS executives he thought sacrificed journalistic values to the star system and bottom-line greed.

"Something is seriously out of balance," he wrote in his 1996 autobiography, "when the top people receive such huge wages while the networks drastically cut their staffs to meet grossly reduced budgets."

The exacting standards that Cronkite and his colleagues established have all but vanished. One of the right-wing noise machine's signal achievements has been to devalue even the possibility of his kind of professionalism. It's all propaganda to them.

We'll not soon see Walter Cronkite's like again.

How true, unfortunately.

More Cronkite

Walter Cronkite was celebrated, but not for his more significant moments, such as his remarks about the mess in Vietnam, while Tim Russert was celebrated for being what the current journalistic mob, particularly in the Beltway, do, which is not journalism.

To be fair, though, Russert's premature death was a horrible shock to everybody, and he appeared to be a genuinely good person, a contrast to the hatchet man persona he displayed on Meet the Press. Cronkite lived to a ripe old age and was active until shortly before he died. And one should bear in mind Russert, unlike Cronkite, was NOT a journalist anyway; he started out as a political hack. The fact political operatives like him, George Stephanopolous, Chris Matthews, and Joe Scarborough are even given a forum at all when true journalists are ignored should tell us all how far media standards have fallen. It's now all about infotainment, not about information.
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No sooner is Cronkite's body cold than somebody is wanting to cash in writing a "tell-all" book writing about how mean he was and was never around his children.

More Cronkite

MLK assassination:



What's My Line:




This is the full New York Times obituary.

And That's the Way It Was

I would be remiss if I didn't include CBS News' own report of Walter Cronkite's death a short while ago:

Walter Leland Cronkite was born in St. Joseph, Missouri on November 4, 1916, the only child of a dentist father and homemaker mother. When he was still young, his family moved to Texas. One day, he read an article in "Boys Life" magazine about the adventures of reporters working around the world - and young Cronkite was hooked. He began working on his high school newspaper and yearbook and, in 1933, he entered the University of Texas at Austin to study political science, economic and journalism. He never graduated. He took a part time job at the Houston Post, left college to do what he loved: report.

After working as a general assignment reporter for the Post and a sportscaster in Oklahoma City, Cronkite got a job in 1939 working for United Press. He went to Europe to cover World War II as part of the "Writing 69th," a group of reporters who found themselves covering some of the most important developments in the war, including the D-Day invasion, bombing missions over Germany, and later, the Nuremburg war trials. In 1940, he married Mary Elizabeth Maxwell - known as "Betsy" - and for the next six decades she was the dutiful reporter’s wife, enduring sometimes long separations while he covered the world, and raising three children. Cronkite once wrote about her: ''I attribute the longevity of our marriage to Betsy's extraordinary keen sense of humor, which saw us over many bumps (mostly of my making), and her tolerance, even support, for the uncertain schedule and wanderings of a newsman."

While working for the UP, Cronkite was offered a job at CBS by Edward R. Murrow - and he turned it down. He finally accepted a second offer in 1950, and stepped into the new medium of television. In the early '50s, it was a medium many of the "serious" journalists at CBS and elsewhere viewed with skepticism, if not disdain. Radio and print, they contended, were for real reporters; television was for actors or comedians.

We won't see another one like him.

Walter Cronkite 1916-2009

Journalist icon Walter Cronkite, 92, has died, one day after the 40th anniversary Apollo 11 lifted on its journey to the moon.

Mr. Cronkite anchored the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981, at a time when television became the dominant medium of the United States. He figuratively held the hand of the American public during the civil rights movement, the space race, the Vietnam war, and the impeachment of Richard Nixon. During his tenure, network newscasts were expanded to 30 minutes from 15.

I might as well pay a tribute to both the moon landing and Cronkite through uploading these videos.

Walter Cronkite Moon Landing Part 1:



Moon Landing Part 2:



Part 3:



Part 4:



Part 5:



Part 6:



Part 7:



Part 8:



Link to YouTube site

And this clip is even more famous, of Cronkite's announcement of JFK's murder:



Cronkite was one of the last of the old school of journalists, you know, the kind who actually reported the news. The JFK assassination was perhaps the high point of television journalism. Commentary was minimal; the event told its own story.

However, in an unusual case of Cronkite giving his opinion on events, this link has the famous Vietnam comment.

Obituaries?

While Walter Cronkite is not in grave condition, he is not expected to recover from his most recent illness.

Cronkite is 92 years old.

Obituaries?

Contrary to news reports legendary newsman Walter Cronkite is at death's door, people who know him say otherwise.

At 92 he's old, and getting older. And when you get old, everything starts to wear out, like a car with too many miles on it.

He's not the only one who has worked for CBS News who is way up there. Mike Wallace is 91, and Andy Rooney is 90.