Remembering Walter Cronkite

Originally published on Examiner.com.

When I walked into ABC News headquarters in New York City, in August of 1973, my goal was to become the next Walter Cronkite. It was my first TV news job. Having just graduated from NYU a few months earlier, I quickly learned that my own interests and talents were better suited to producing newscasts, and managing news operations. But, despite my change in career plans, it was still Mr. Cronkite who represented the ideals and positive reasons for wanting to work in the news business.

TV was the dominant news medium in those days, and Walter Cronkite was its undisputed champion, the most trusted man in America, according to public opinion polls. Whether it was the triumph of space flight or the tragedy of losing President Kennedy to an assassin's gunfire, we heard about it from Walter Cronkite. Watching the network evening newscast was appointment viewing for many Americans, and the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite was the top choice for most viewers. NBC's Nightly News was a respectable second place entry. Where I worked, at ABC, our third place operation was just beginning to assert itself. It would take time before ABC began to challenge and then overtake CBS and NBC for several years; it finally happened, long after Cronkite retired.

Cronkite was described as "avuncular," defined by the New Oxford American Dictionary as "of or relating to an uncle.• kind and friendly toward a younger or less experienced person." This description served as the source for one of his nicknames, "Uncle Walter." Not only did people trust him, they liked him, too. This combination of authority and likability gave Cronkite a special stature during the two decades he anchored the evening news. The people who research why certain personalities are successful on TV sometimes refer to "Para-social relationships" that viewers form with on-air personalities. We feel like we know them. In the case of Cronkite, having a trusted "uncle" on the air every night, worked for viewers.

Many of the people I worked with at ABC came from CBS and had worked with Walter Cronkite for many years. From his peers, I got the impression he was highly respected for his serious approach and professionalism. His background as a wire service correspondent during World War Two, served him well as he made the transition to television. He was a fine reporter first, and an excellent writer and editor.

One of my jobs at ABC was to watch "the Cronkite broadcast" every evening, and type up a report that described what was covered and how it was presented. This report was distributed to all the executives at ABC News, the next morning. Watching Cronkite, with focused attention, helped me understand what makes a good newscast and what makes a good anchor. The term "anchor" was developed for Cronkite. Somebody came up with it when they realized political coverage required a central person to pull all the elements together, to anchor the broadcast; that was Walter. In Sweden anchors are sometimes referred to as Kronkiters; in Holland, the variation is Cronkiters.

Walter Cronkite was a man of his time. Tom Brokaw coined the term the "greatest generation" to describe those who came of age during World War Two. Cronkite was one of the giants of that generation.

How we get the news today has changed dramatically. TV is still important and watched by millions, but it is no longer the daily and dominant ingredient in the American diet that it was when there were just three network newscasts, no cable news, no Internet. Today's news sources represent points of view and often lean this way or that. Fox goes right, MSNBC to the left; Drudge gives you the conservatives' take and Huffington Post takes you to the land of liberals. Couric, Williams, and Gibson still try to play it down the middle but are viewed with suspicion and tainted--rightly or wrongly--by assertions that they represent particular positions on everything from environmental reporting to election coverage. Trust has been replaced by suspicion.

In this environment we may never have another TV journalist who rises to the level of Walter Cronkite, as a trusted figure capable of anchoring our view of the world with a sense of honesty and fairness. Trust, itself, is in short supply as we navigate the problems of the day. For future generations of journalists, Cronkite's legacy should serve as inspiration to report the news, without fear or favor and by so doing rekindle a sense of trust and honesty that we so desperately need during these difficult times. This may not happen on the scale of corporate success and leadership that Cronkite enjoyed during CBS's dominance. But the new generation of journalists, empowered by technologies Cronkite's producers could only dream of, needs to aspire to greatness and win the trust of those they serve.