An Icon Passes

July 18, 2009

Old friends they shine like diamonds
Old friends you can always call
Old friends, Lord you can't buy 'em
You know it's old friends after all
--"Old Friends," by Guy Clark/Susannah Clark/Richard Dobson

No way to say it easily. We've lost an old friend. Walter Cronkite, the "most trusted man in America," has died at 92...and those of us who grew up watching "Uncle Walter" bring the nightly television news can never quite explain just how important he was to our daily lives.

Walter Cronkite was an old-school journalist, who earned his way up the ranks in CBS radio as a daring battlefield reporter in World War II (he flew into Normandy on a glider, according to one source) and in television's early days. As TV emerged, his ability to speak without a script and his special calming presence made him the logical choice for "anchorman" of the nightly television news.

CBS News had set the standard as a serious news outlet in the radio days, and broadcasters adopted a similar approach when they moved to television. When Cronkite took the anchor job, nobody was sure what to expect out of television news. But when John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, it was Walter Cronkite who broke the news to the nation in a quavering voice as he slowly removed his glasses, looked up and blinked away the mist in his eyes, then stuck with us for the next dark week. While we stared at the stark black and white tube, Cronkite explained, almost sotto voce, what was happening as the body was transported by plane to the capitol, as Vice President Johnson was sworn in, and as we stared in stunned disbelief, watching the funeral cortege carry the family and the casket up and back down Pennsylvania Avenue followed by a riderless horse, and on to the fallen President's final rest in Arlington National Cemetery. Walter Cronkite held our hands, comforted us, cried with us, and helped us accept the harsh reality of that violent and useless act.

Nobody ever did it better. Cronkite took to the job as if he were born for it, breaking the bad news and bringing the good news in the same steady, even-handed and almost fatherly tone that reassured and comforted us. Never sensational, never extreme, he approached his task with consummate professionalism. When he interviewed important personalities in politics, world affairs or entertainment, he was always good-natured but quite earnest. No cheap shots or sensational angles. Just the news. Straight. To the point. And always informative.

Those of us whose lives spanned those early formative years of television remember that hearing the television news from Walter Cronkite was like having your grandfather read a bedtime story every night. No matter how bad the news might have been, he could reassure and comfort his listeners. When I think of the major news events of those times--the Kennedy-Nixon debates, the assassinations of John F. and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., the raucous 1968 Democratic convention, the landing of the US astronauts on the moon, the riots in Watts, Watergate and the resignation of Richard Nixon, the Vietnam debacle and so many more, I think of Walter Cronkite.

Ever the pro, Cronkite tried to contain his emotions, but he would occasionally betray them with a twinkle in his eye or an excited exclamatory comment, as when he shouted out "Man on the moon!" when the astronauts landed. While nobody knew his politics, we instinctively knew his values--he was honest, no-nonsense, dignified, reserved but never stuffy, patriotic and good-natured--and we expected to get the straight truth. He never failed us. He gave us the news without gratuitous opinions. If he commented, he labeled it as editorial, and it had profound influence. He rarely dropped his guard, but once--when told us exactly what he thought at the end of his eye-opening visit to Vietnam--he leveled with the public with the opinion that it was a futile effort. At that moment, President Johnson later said, he knew he had lost the support of Middle America and decided not to run for re-election.

When Cronkite retired in 1981, he was at the top of his game, and television news was regarded as a public service--part of the television medium's privilege for use of the public airwaves. It was not long afterward that television's business moguls decided, unwisely in my opinion, that news was not a public service, but was instead part of TV's entertainment role. Management demanded that the news division support itself financially. Hard news was shortened and diluted, reporters were recruited more for their good looks than for their reporting skills, and the "news" was diluted with fluffy, soft features. And, of course, there were no editorial positions taken, for fear of alienating sponsors. We see more and more of this shortsighted mentality in news media management as time passes, and the American public is poorer for it. Cronkite would have fought it had he remained, and he later made no bones of his disapproval of this radical change. Today, communications and technology are much faster, the reporters are flashier, and the coverage is more comprehensive, but television journalism has yet to live up to the quality and character that were the standard in Walter Cronkite's day.

Walter Cronkite never lost his humility, personal charm or his sense of duty to the public. There is good reason why nobody since his departure has earned the title of "most trusted." To this day, I just don't have the same appetite for the news as I did when Walter Cronkite gave it to me.

We've lost an old friend. And, as Uncle Walter would say, that's the way it is.

Charlie Crow © July 17, 2009

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