News

Once upon a time there were only four channels on the television. There were no home computers. There was no internet. Blogging and Twitter were not a sparkle in their inventors’s eyes. There was no video tape, no DVD to watch. Whatever was on those few channels was what you had. There was ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS or some local channel that did local programming if you were lucky. I grew up without PBS, we couldn’t get it. I didn’t see "Sesame Street" until I had a child of my own. There were many fine programs on all the channels, but for news once there was only CBS at our house, because they had Walter Cronkite. He was THE news anchor. His calm, authoritative voice got this country through the Vietnam War, and his news casts were the most exciting and well informed on the Space Program. I was very small when Apollo 11 landed on the moon and don’t remember it much because my grandmother wasn’t that interested in it, but she watched Mr. Cronkite talk about it. She wanted to see what he had to say about all of it. It wasn’t landing on the moon that excited her, it was the man behind the desk. I always thought she had a secret crush on Walter Cronkite, and why not? He was intelligent, kind, passionate, knowledgeable, charismatic, and he honestly knew his job. He was not just a talking head. Walter Cronkite was a newsman’s newsman. I guess I should say newsperson, but regardless of gender Walter Cronkite has been the bar held up to generations of newspeople for decades, and though we’ve had some fine people anchoring for us, no one yet has been the "next Walter Crontkite".

I will leave it there, because there are many fine articles out there being written by people in the business, and people who actually knew Mr. Cronkite. I was just one of the many viewers who watched him, and trusted him. Yes, that’s right, we trusted Walter Cronkite to tell us the truth. We honestly believed that if he knew something bad he would tell us, and if it was good he would tell us that to, he covered the news all of the news. Admittedly, Mr. Cronkite worked before the networks had to sell commercial time with the news, before the news had to compete with regular television shows for ratings and sponsors. Maybe one of the reasons we haven’t had the "next Walter Cronkite" is that the news business has changed to the point where it’s entertainment first and information second. His rich, familiar voice, told us our news both good and bad, and we honestly believed that he wouldn’t hide anything from us. We believed he was a man of honor and integrity. I have never heard a story about him that made me doubt that.

Was he the last anchor we had in this country that we trusted to that degree? I think so, and if that is true then it is a sad legacy to a great man.