How sadly ironic that as we near the 40th anniversary of humanity's first steps onto the moon, we lose the man who told most of us about it as it happened. Walter Cronkite, for nearly two decades anchorman and editor of The CBS Evening News and host of other programs for that network as well as PBS and others, has died at 92 in New York, NY after an as-yet-unspecified illness; Reuters has posted his obituary here. UPDATE, Sat. 6/18, 10:30a: Our local paper reports today that Cronkite's longtime chief of staff announced yesterday he had died of cerebral vascular disease.
For many years, the Columbia Broadcasting System's television arm was known as "the Tiffany Network," for the high quality of much of its programming. Few did more to help earn the network that moniker than Cronkite, who virtually was television journalism for his professionalism, his integrity, that reassuring, avuncular presence, that sonorous baritone voice, his skill at reporting and reading the news...and his fortitude in the face of stories that shook a newsman's required objectivity to its core. Anyone's would have been had they been in his chair, having to tell the world that John Kennedy had been assassinated moments after the young President was declared dead; that men had set foot on Earth's only natural satellite for the first time in history; that one of Kennedy's successors was resigning his job just steps ahead of a criminal inquiry and impeachment; and that yet more young men had died each day in the jungles of Southeast Asia fighting someone else's war. That he managed as well as he did was the chief reason that for millions of us, no story was news until "Uncle Walter" told us it was. Some of my own earliest memories include watching him report on the second lunar landing in midmorning before heading off to kindergarten class in the afternoon.
Cronkite set the standard for television reporting, just as his CBS colleague/boss/mentor Edward R. Murrow had for radio†...and every single talking head assigned to ride an anchor desk since owes him an incalculable, unpayable debt. So do we all; not only for his incomparable work, but because his was one of the strongest voices condemning the ratings/budget-driven degradation of network news in general since his retirement...even though no evidence has surfaced as yet that the suits who were his intended audience have listened at all. Farewell, sir, and thank you; and my heart, thoughts and prayers are with your family, friends, coworkers and viewers. We shall not see his like again...and, sadly, that's the way it is.
†Wikipedia reports that Cronkite actually had the colossal brass testes to turn Murrow down the first time that worthy offered him a job at CBS. How in the name of sanity do you say "No" to working with/for Edward R. Fucking Murrow?!?
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