Source The Boston Globe
By Mark Perigard
Walter Cronkite, the CBS news anchor who was considered “the most trusted man in America,” died yesterday at his New York home at age 92, after suffering for many years from cerebrovascular disease, according to family members.
Cronkite anchored the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981 and was easily the most influential broadcast journalist of the 20th century.
Millions of viewers came to depend upon the St. Joseph, Mo., native for his stately reading of headlines. He ended each newscast with his trademark signoff,“. . . and that’s the way it is.”
In a 1996 interview, he talked about the standards of excellence that served as the bedrock of his career. “A professional journalist recognizes his or her prejudices and biases and avoids them in writing and reporting. There’s no place in journalism for biased reporting on the front page. There is no place for subjective, personal opinions to creep in,” he said.
He began his career as a radio announcer in Oklahoma in 1935. In 1937, he joined United Press and became one of its top reporters covering the war effort in Europe and flew on several bombing raids in Germany. Edward R. Murrow recruited him to work for CBS in 1950.
Cronkite was the first broadcast journalist to be referred to as an “anchor” for his work covering both the Republican and Democratic conventions in 1952 for the network.
One of Cronkite’s finest hours was also his most trying. On Nov. 22, 1963, Cronkite broke into CBS’ airing of the soap “As the World Turns” to tell a stunned nation that President John F. Kennedy had been shot while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. As the hours progressed, he sifted through the often conflicting information about Kennedy’s condition. Later that afternoon, choking back emotion, he informed viewers that the president had died.
After he criticized the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in a 1968 editorial, then President Johnson reportedly said, “‘If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”
During the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969, Cronkite was on the air for 27 of the 30 hours, prompting some to dub it “Walter to Walter” coverage. When Neil Armstrong stepped out onto the moon’s surface, Cronkite was rendered speechless, much to his everlasting dismay.
Cronkite retired from the news desk at age 65, in keeping with CBS’ mandatory retirement policy at the time, but he later stated that he regretted giving up the job that he loved.
Post-“Evening News,” Cronkite remained busy, lobbying for campaign finance reform, providing voiceovers to documentaries, supporting NASA, writing a syndicated column, voicing the character of Ben Franklin for PBS’ animated series “Liberty’s Kids” and hosting the annual Kennedy Center Honors for many years. He can be heard every night introducing Katie Couric on CBS Evening News.
Cronkite maintained a summer home in Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard and was a longtime opponent of plans to build a wind farm there.
He was married for almost 65 years to Mary Elizabeth “Betsy” Maxwell, until her death in 2005. He is survived by three children and several grandchildren.
Over the course of his career, Cronkite received just about every award a broadcast journalist could receive. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981 and was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in in 1985. Arizona State University named its school of journalism and mass communication after him.
His family revealed in June that he had been suffering from cerebrovascular disease for some time and was not expected to recover.
Asked once by a reporter as to how he’d like to be remembered, Cronkite replied, “Oh, as a fellow who did his best. I’d like to be remembered as a person who tried to give the news as impartially, as factually, as possible, and succeeded most of the time.”
n today’s crowded cable universe, there are prettier news readers. There are anchors who scream from the right and from the left, but it seems unlikely that any of them will win the popularity and the trust Cronkite attained.
And that’s the way it is today.
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