He was ending his notable career as I was entering Kindergarten, and yet even at that young age it was impossible to not feel the effects of the man who was notably regarded as the ‘most trusted man in America’. On my grandparents old console TV, which was more a piece of furnature than it was a piece of electronics, I can remember seeing him sign off with his nightly tagline, “And that’s the way it is” He was, for decades, the the voice of unfolding history. Cronkite was not just a newsman; he was — like Edward R. Murrow, who brought him to CBS and television — as close a thing to the idea of a newsman as his age imagined. In high school I fell in love with tv news thanks to a high school teacher named Joe Glowacki and his class, CHS-TV (the first daily high school news broadcast in the country). It was in this class that I came to appreciate Cronkite’s brilliance and pivotal role in the most important national events spanning decades. Later in college, as a Communications major, I came to envy his cool delivery and seemingly unshakeable demeanor. The rolling rise and fall of his voice and the rhythms and pauses he built into his prose gave his reporting the subtle weight of blank verse. He was, and is, the gold standard. In the post-evening news age, he will always stand as the pinnacle of what it should have been. As Robert Lloyd of the LA Times rightly said, “Network news anchors still aim for that mix of eloquence and authority that Cronkite embodied, but they compete, at a disadvantage, with the noise of an ascendant punditocracy and the mountain-from-molehill nattering of cable news organizations that live on crises — it’s not the old voice of reassuring honesty that they cultivate, but one of perpetual anxiety. There are many more rooms in the mansion that is television news nowadays, but they have grown proportionately smaller; they are no longer fit for giants.”
Goodbye Walter. Rest in Peace.
“I’ve been proud over the years to see Walter become, not just one of the best known people on television but one of the best known people in the whole world of people. He was proud of me, too, and there’s no better feeling in life than that. I wouldn’t trade Walter Cronkite liking me for just about anything I’ve ever had.” - Andy Rooney, “60 Minutes” commentator
“There was a reason why Walter was called the most trusted man in America. Nothing was more important to him than getting the story right and telling it fairly, and he expected the same of us. I’ve learned a lot from wonderful colleagues here at CBS News, but from him most of all.” - Charles Osgood, anchor of “Sunday Morning”
“Radio and television newsrooms all over America are filled with reporters and producers, writers and editors, who got into journalism for one reason: Walter Cronkite. He was a role model for so many of us. I grew up watching Walter on television, and it was the thrill of my life to finally meet him, and a privilege to spend six years producing pieces for him for the”CBS Evening News.” He set standards that we in broadcast journalism still strive to meet today. Walter Cronkite was, quite simply, the best. His legacy and his spirit will always be part of CBS News and wherever good journalism is practiced.” - Rick Kaplan, executive producer, “CBS Evening News:”