R.I.P. Walter Cronkite


(YouTube link)


Veteran journalist and news anchorman Walter Cronkite died today. Often called "the most trusted man in America", Cronkite set a high standard for television journalism in the 20th century. He was 92 years old.
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.

And that's the way it is, July 17, 2009.

Link -via YesButNoButYes

See also: A collection of memorable reports from Walter Cronkite.

An icon from a bygone era. What a privlege to grow up spending the evening with the likes of him. No successor ever came close to what America felt when hearing the news from Walter Cronkite. Rest In Peace.
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Maybe this is the wrong venue to ask this, but what's it called when someone "deliberately places inflammatory material on the internet in order to provoke vehement responses?"
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Grew up with Walter telling how it was. This guy has been missed for awhile, although I thought Peter Jennings had a similar need to connect with the world. Unfortunately, they're both gone.

I specifically remember my Grandad insisting we all shut our mouths when the CBS News came on, and Cronkite told us how it was. He was like the Sinatra/Brando of the news.
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Get Bent Timm, you troll.

Cronkite was a journalist of the highest order who presided over both triumph and tragedy in equal parts. And more than anything sought the truth. He is a more accomplished and greater man than you will ever even see...and twenty times the man you could hope to become.
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Don't feed the trolls. That's why they're here.

My grandpop did the same thing, and after that we watched Unsolved Mysteries for a couple of hours. This year has been so terrible. Now that the "greats" are all passing it really may be the time to turn off the radio. Godspeed, Walt.
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If a person were to look at the ratio of feelgood stories Cronkite reported versus the 'oh no, something bad happened' stories, I wonder what it would be...
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Mike390430499, that ratio is interesting to look at for newscasts all around, and it probably varies from era to era and now widely among news outlets because there are so many with different focuses. But it wouldn't tell you what Walter Cronkite was all about. See, bad news is "news" because it's different from the things that happen every day. Which is something to be thankful about in itself.

What made his type of journalism different from what we are used to today would be to look at the ratio of important stories to fluff and filler. And that would put 21st century journalism at a disadvantage, because newscasts today have to fill 24 hours a day and several channels. In Cronkite's era of an hour of news per day max, there wasn't room for anything that wasn't important. In many ways, that made following the news easier for the viewer. But networks could expand coverage when needed, for big events like a political assassination or war or a moon landing. And those are the things we remember years later.
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It's funny how people somehow feel they have to defend WAlter Cronkite's reporting of the news. He didn't cause the Vietnam War; he reported on it. Maybe he should have been reporting on bake sales instead...?

It's pretty funny the lengths trolls will go to.
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I have a real problem with Walter Cronkite. His lies regarding the US victories in Vietnam most notably Tet, helped destroy US support for the war at home. He did this because of his Socialist ideology and his desire to see US power curtailed abroad.
When the US lost the Vietnam war, communist governments flourished in SE Asia and resulted in the murder of over one million civilians.
I feel that Cronkite's deceptive broadcasts played a huge part in allowing this to happen and sour the US public's desire to stop the killing fields of Cambodia.

PS please don't call me a troll for presenting a different opinion.
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Eh, any proof that he was telling lies? Is it like people who hate Obama's policies, just because of his party affiliation, skin color, or reaching out to other religions?
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Jerry, I won't call you a troll if you show any proof of what you're talking about.

Otherwise, you would just be a flat-earth, truth-is-out-there, moon-landing-was-faked, no-plane-flew-into-the-Pentagon conspiracy nut.
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Cronkite was a lib, which is perfectly fine.

He used the nightly news cast as his very own bully pulpit, telling America what he wanted them to hear and, consequently, getting them to believe what he wanted them to believe. That is not fine.

Cronkite's history was not stellar in the truth and accuracy department.

He didn't do America, or her servicemen, any favors by blatantly lying and editorializing about events in Vietnam. Conversely, Cronkite soured American public opinion while simultaneously encouraging the enemy to fight on a little longer. His words may not have been direct encouragement, but the result was the same.

It's amusing to me to see Neatorama commenters get themselves all lathered up over history and politics, subjects of which the knowledge here is obviously very limited.

People who know history and have a firm anchor in reality wouldn't be so quick to make public spectacles of themselves.
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Ronald L, Why must you attack my character? Walter Cronkite said the US lost the Tet Offensive. This was a straight out lie. Can you dispute this with facts?
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Still waiting for citations from those who would call Uncle Walter a liar. But in the meantime check out CBS tonight when 60 Minutes would usually be on. I know I will.
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While awaiting the cites from moderation limbo (thanks), I'll just say what I know. The Tet Offensive, which was a surprise attack across many fronts, ended up being stifled. The NV was pushed back, and their plan for ultimate triumph failed. There was however, a new realization of the cost of the war in the long run.

What Cronkite basically told his audience was just that. I believe the word was "stalemate." And he painted a grim portrait of the war to come, stimulating President Johnson to not seek re-election. I am clueless as to any lies that were told, and what damage was done.
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In fact, WC used his mastery of the English language to say what he said better than I could.

"We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that Hanoi's winter-spring offensive has been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that -- negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer's almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could"
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