Vale: Walter Cronkite

Legendary US newsreader Walter Cronkite, the “most trusted man in America” has died following a long illness. He was 92.

Cronkite personified television journalism for more than a generation as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News. Known for his steady and straightforward delivery, his trim moustache, and his iconic sign-off line -“That’s the way it is” – Cronkite dominated the television news industry during one of the most volatile periods of American history. He broke the news of the Kennedy assassination, reported extensively on Vietnam and Civil Rights and Watergate, and seemed to be the very embodiment of TV journalism.

“Cronkite came to be the sort of personification of his era,” veteran PBS Correspondent Robert McNeil once said. “He became kind of the media figure of his time. Very few people in history, except maybe political and military leaders, are the embodiment of their time, and Cronkite seemed to be.”

A 1972 poll determined he was “the most trusted man in America” – surpassing even the president, vice president, members of Congress and all other journalists. In a time of turmoil and mistrust, after Vietnam and Watergate, the title was a rare feat – and the label stuck.

With such wide influence he was a pivotal figure for world leaders and storyteller of issues on the world stage.

In 1968, Cronkite returned from visiting Vietnam and declared on television:”It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is a stalemate.” President Lyndon Johnson, on hearing that, reportedly said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost America.” Not long after, Johnson declared his intention not to run for re-election. That same year saw the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy – two more shocking moments that bound the country together through the medium of television. Once again, as he had five years earlier, Cronkite was the steadying force during a time of national sorrow.

One of Cronkite’s enthusiasms was the space race. And in 1969, when America sent a man to the moon, he couldn’t contain himself. “Go baby, go!,” he said, as Apollo XI took off. He ended up performing what critics described as”Walter to Walter” coverage of the mission – staying on the air for 27 of the 30 hours that Apollo XI took to complete its mission.

He died just days before the 40th anniversary of man stepping on the moon.

As Cronkite said on March 6, 1981, concluding his final broadcast as anchorman: “Old anchormen, you see, don’t fade away, they just keep coming back for more. And that’s the way it is.”

Source: CBS