Authored by: cgrotke on Saturday, July 18 2009 @ 02:16 PM GMT+4

... and that's the way it is.

He and Howard Cosell were two of the more memorable TV voices of
that era.

Authored by: spoon on Saturday, July 18 2009 @ 07:57 PM GMT+4

I agree that they were very memorable voices. As far as news anchors go...well, I don't really know what the criterion are for such positions. I've always thought of them primarily as actors. Special niche actors like book readers or monologuists. Perhaps radio actors. No, not really that skilled. I guess, like all these careers one had to have superb diction and a smooth delivery. I think we remember personalities like Cronkite particularly because we they didn't express quite such strong personal biases and certainly did not have to include any of the trivia that makes up so much of today's "news." In Cronkite's day I think one thought of news as something important to learn rather than pure entertainment, or, in it's lastest incarnation, obitutainment as the world was treated to with Michael Jackson's death.

When one, then, lays out the serious characteristics or qualities necessary for the news anchor position how well does Cronkite stand up? For a very funny and illuminating juxtaposition and perspective, watch the Onion News videos for a while. (www.theonion.com). They do utterly marvelous news anchoring. They simply choose different type topics. Were Cronkite's skills any better than theirs?

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spoon agave

Authored by: Genie on Saturday, July 18 2009 @ 11:06 PM GMT+4

It's a pop/mass culture kind a' thing. We could not perform--so readily--all your comparisons back then in Cronkite's time.

It's okay, just, and called for, to honor individuals within the time in which they lived. We all exist bodily within certain time/place context(s).

Genie

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Wonders Never Cease.

Authored by: annikee on Saturday, July 18 2009 @ 11:43 PM GMT+4

Yes, Spoon, they were.

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Freedom and fear are natural enemies.

Believing gossip is worse than spreading it.

Authored by: Lise on Tuesday, July 21 2009 @ 02:55 PM GMT+4

As far as I've been able to tell, Walter Cronkite was the real deal -- not a well-coifed talking head like we have today but a newsman in the old sense. He was a wire reporter for UPI for years before getting into television, and even as a television anchor, he was still deeply involved in the news gathering operation.

Some people say that he wasn't objective in his reporting. I disagree. Although he took time out to deliver editorial opinions on his broadcast (as I believe senior reporters have a right to do) he never came across as anything but objective in his coverage. But he did appear to care, which is maybe why so many people listened to and trusted him.

There was also his voice, of course. When Chris told me he had died, I immediately heard his voice in my head just like it was yesterday. It actually surprised me how well I remembered it, that reassuring timbre he had.

There is no one of Cronkite;s stature today although there are a few who are of his ilk -- Jim Lehrer springs to mind, another newsman with integrity who also happens to care about this country. But even Lehrer is of a dying breed. Too bad, really.

Authored by: vtstream on Sunday, July 19 2009 @ 08:36 AM GMT+4

I remember Cronkite's reporting on the Vietnam war. Though he approached it from a neutral stance, as journalists perhaps should, the truth was hard to avoid and watching the war unfold each night and being reported by this respectable man helped form my opinions about that tragic mistake.
His famous "and that's the way it is" is etched into my brain. Thank You Mr. Cronkite.

Authored by: vtjasper68 on Sunday, July 19 2009 @ 08:31 PM GMT+4

Sorry, but Mr. Cronkite did not report the Vietnam War as a neutral observer.
He gave it his opinion, which was that we lost the Tet offensive which was not the truth.
He didn't believ in the war effort and reported it as such.
his was not the work of a "true" journalist which is to report the news, not your views.

Authored by: Mr. Buddy Love on Sunday, July 19 2009 @ 09:18 PM GMT+4

Here's what Cronkite said after the Tet Offensive, in early 1968:

"The Vietcong did not win by a knockout [in the Tet Offensive], but
neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. . . . 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. . . .
"For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience
of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. . . . 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" -- Walter Cronkite, CBS Evening
News, February 27, 1968.

This was an EDITORIAL, apart from what Paley had his broadcasters
doing while reading the news, which was to be as impartial as
possible, knowing as all journalists do (who went to school) that pure
objectivity is impossible. Others who were in the CBS lineup who gave
excellent editorials were: Eric Severeid, Charles Kurault, Bill Murrow,
Roger Mudd.

But to get to your argument about Vietnam, the war was never
"winable" as long as the Red Chinese stood ready to the north with all
their divisions, ready to step in as they did in Korea, much to the
surprise and dismay of Dugout Doug MacArthur, in 1951/52. Dugout
Doug would later warn President Kennedy of the foolishness of getting
bogged down in a fullscale land war in Southeast Asia, and JFK
seemed to agree, holding it to advisors, even calling for a scale down
in the end of 1963 (NSAM 263) which only got rescinded when Lyndon
BlowJob became president and reversed course, getting us fully
committed in early 1965 in DaNang Province.

By 1968, only the diehard "hold Stalingrad at all costs" types were
saying we should stay in the conflict. General Westmoreland, who had
promised we could win if only we had hundreds of thousands of
additional troops, was beginning to wear on the professionals at the
Pentagon and at Rand Corp. who knew better, and the Pentagon
Papers have proven this out after their release, in 1971. Cronkite was
by 1968 merely stating the obvious, that it was boneheaded to stay
committed to a foolish civil war that was unwinable. Read Sheehan's
"A Bright Shining Lie" if you need military confirmation.

And to loosely paraphrase Cronkite: "That's The Way it Was."

Authored by: vtstream on Monday, July 20 2009 @ 11:45 PM GMT+4

The above mentioned editorial followed a lengthy program reporting details of the war from a politically neutral point of view. Yes, the editorial was just that, personal opinion.
As I said, the truth was hard to avoid, despite what the hawks wanted to hear. And that's the way it is.