At 46, I am old enough to remember watching Walter Cronkite in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when he anchored the CBS Evening News and was known - for good reason - as the "most trusted man in America." As a kid, I assumed that if there was something important happening in the world - whether in Vietnam, Dallas, or Memphis - Walter Cronkite would know about it and would give it to us straight; accurately, professionally, without fluff or glitz, no gimmicks or fancy graphics, respectful of the viewer's intelligence, etc. This contrasts starkly with the situation today, when I feel like my IQ drops 20 points every time I turn on the network news. In contrast, I always felt smarter and better informed after watching Walter Cronkite. And I miss that greatly.
Aside from personally being a great reporter and anchor, Walter Cronkite more broadly represented an era before the curse of "infotainment," before 24/7 "missing white girls" and "shark attacks" (and cloyingly idiotic "human interest" stories), before superficiality and stupidity took over the mainstream "news" and turned it into nearly unmitigated trash. Today, if you are one of the tens of millions of Americans who get their "news" primarily from ABC, CBS, NBC or (god forbid) Fox, chances are you know almost nothing about what's happening in the world. Certainly, you will not get serious analysis, depth, breadth, or even more than a few minutes of "hard news" on the network nightly "news" broadcasts. For that, you can turn to PBS or the BBC on television, NPR on the radio, the few remaining newspapers and "news" magazines that are worth anything, or some excellent reporting and writing being done by the "new media." Other than that, forget about it. The sad reality is that today, there's no Walter Cronkite, let alone the superb news bureau working behind him, on a U.S. commercial network. And for those of us who remember what it was like watching Walter Cronkite in his prime at CBS, that's a great loss.
P.S. Over at The Young Turks website, they do an excellent job putting the imminent death of Walter Cronkite into perspective:
See, kids, a long, long time ago, the Networks actually covered the important things going on in the world rather than devoting their time to dead pop stars, news anchor colonoscopies, and the latest missing blond. They had actual Foreign Bureaus with real investigative journalists who reported on and shot true images of war as it happened. They weren't embedded PR people for the Pentagon.
But, those days are gone, along with the integrity which once epitomized reporting. If you are old enough to remember Walter's tearing up and choked voice when announcing the death of our 35th President, you know that he truly was America personified on that day. He felt and expressed the grief of a nation.
