In the classes I have taught at South Middle School and Diamond Middle School, there are only a handful of students who know who Charles Gibson, Katie Couric, or Brian Williams are.
From 1962 to 1981, everyone knew the anchors who brought us the evening news, and the one who stood far above the rest was Walter Cronkite, who died today at age 92.
When he ended his broadcasts with "That's the way it is," you had confidence that it was just that. I was in second grade when John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, so I did not see his announcement of the death, but it was Cronkite's coverage that I followed through the next several days.
I can vividly remember Cronkite's coverage 40 years ago of the moon landing and his excitement as Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the lunar surface. I was watching as a 12-year-old when he made sense of the riots, both from protesters and from police, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
And it wasn't just his calm, authoritative reading of the news that made Walter Cronkite one of journalism's heroes. He also was an astute observer who recognized important news long before most of his colleagues did.
It was his report on Watergate that took up more than half of the CBS Evening News that finally turned it into a national news story and not just a crime story being told by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
It was also Cronkite who laid it on the line with Americans and told them the reality in Vietnam was not what was being told to Americans by our leaders.
Cronkite received much of his training as a wire service reporter, and that print background was something he never forgot. He was always a reporter first.
The rumor that Cronkite was near death first surfaced a few weeks ago. Sadly, if he had passed away at that time, it would have been lost in the media overkill over Michael Jackson.
Hopefully, Walter Cronkite's death will receive the coverage it deserves.
Cronkite was a giant, but your list of Couric, Gibson, and Williams sets the stage for my point. What was the size of the competition when Cronkite was an anchor? Yes, there were other greats during that time period, but the mind of the current generation is tugged at from so many different directions. They don't need to rely on a middle-aged White man for reliable news anymore. As great a man as Cronkite was--a pioneer--he would stand out among his peers today, but just like Couric, Gibson, and Williams, he would have far less notoriety.
ReplyDeleteIf Walter Cronkite were in his prime today and if he delivered the news as he did in his prime, he would TOTALLY DOMINATE the current crop of news readers....now, would be deliver the news as he did in his day...I don't know....but there would be absolutely no contest from any other source....mainstream networks or cable....too bad someone today hasn't figured that out and learned to do news in that way...once we started down the road of including "fake" footage to simulate a crime story for example..and add all the tricks and tell only one side of a story...the party was over.
ReplyDelete