Cronkite's Legacy

It is so strange how life unfolds sometimes.

I was watching CNN just today, and I saw anchor Kyra Phillips leave her desk and wander back into what seemed like the bowels of the newsroom, camera trailing her, to meet a correspondent doing a piece on the unrest in Iran. They conversed face-to-face, with a couple of junior workers behind them, simultaneously sitting and chatting in front of their computer monitors as if totally oblivious that they were on television.

Then we shifted to the weather, and the weatherman was working furiously with his hands, doing the touch screen thing, and all these screens were coming up fast and furious, showing weather conditions in different parts of the country.

Throughout all this, I felt simultaneously transfixed and distracted.

And while on one level I had to marvel at all the innovation and technology on display, the old dinosaur who lives inside me had to say, "This all feels forced, like a gimmick."

And then to reinforce this sentiment, hours later I learn we've lost Walter Cronkite.

Cronkite needed no technology enhancements or new format ideas during his extended run as the CBS anchor. In fact, had such so-called enhancements been possible or practical, I think the majority of Americans would have rebelled.

All he ever required was a chair and desk, and a camera to shoot him straight on. What we expected and received every weekday night were his presence, his voice, his words. Combined they carried enormous weight and authority. This was a man you lived through, a man you trusted.

He projected the idealism of his generation, embracing the conviction advanced by his mentor Ed Murrow that television could be and should be much more than a vehicle for vacuous entertainment. This powerful and influential young medium could also educate and enlighten.

Walter Cronkite didn't just advocate for this idea; he put it into practice. You could always bet that any special news programming with his name affixed to it had to be must viewing.

He had at once an enormously keen intellect and the common touch. No one could doubt his humanity; indeed the American people fed on it. He was everybody's trusted uncle, father, or cousin. He was family.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking footage associated with President Kennedy's assassination was Cronkite losing his composure momentarily on-camera when first announcing the news. One truly felt he was crying for all of us.

By all accounts, he was as curious and forthright off-camera as on-. I remember seeing him at several New York events when he was well into his retirement, and he always seemed to be listening intently to the other person, reflecting not only his unwavering journalistic instinct, but also his endless fascination with people.

It is comforting to think how rich his life was, not only in achievement, but in love of family and friends.

Doubtless many distinguished figures who knew the man personally will speak more eloquently about him, peppering their tributes with revealing personal anecdotes. I don't mean to compete with that; in truth, I was just another viewer.

Still -- while I'm sorry I never actually met him, I can't help but feel I actually knew him very well. Perhaps that was his ultimate gift to us all.

And so, with the rest of the planet old enough to remember his legacy, I celebrate his life and mourn his passing.

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Comments

[mamacat]

I am glad that you mentioned Edward R. Murrow. He is more than any other newsman in our history my personal hero. From his blitz reporting in London, which helped cement our support for Britain against the Nazis, to his condemnation of the right-wing of the Republican Party, as personified by Sen. McCarthy, he demonstrated why he deserves to be called the bravest and most effective newman in U.S. history.

Compared to the great Edward R. Murrow, today's newscasters are nothing but cheap comedians. And today's best political comedians, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, are the closest thing we have to Mr. Murrow's intellect and brave stance against tyranny.

[LMPE]

How are we going to remember pseudo-journalist Sean Hannity?

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

I do my level best not to remember him now!

[mamacat]

The lead-in article mentions the vacuous entertainment of the by-gone era. It seems to me that even much of the "vacuous" entertainment of that age, shows like I Love Lucy, Laugh In, and Star Trek, were better than the "vacuous" entertainment of today, the reality shows.

When I read that a show like Jon and Kate plus 8 has more viewers than MSNBC, CNN, and Fox combined, it makes me think that there is something very wrong with us.

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

I could not agree with you more.

As with movies, creative people back then were encouraged to be imaginative and clever, rather than wading in formula and sensationalism.

[happycat]

Mr. Farr, Thank you. Your eloquent tribute to Walter Cronkite captured all of my thoughts about the man. I am glad also that from all accounts, he led a very rich and interesting life. What saddens me though, is reading this morning that he died from complications of dementia. I just think of that great mind of his, towards the end, unaware of what was going on around him. I hope that his family and loved ones were a great comfort to him, because Uncle Walter, was a great comfort to all of us Americans in times of strife, confusion and unrest. There is nobody who anchored the news like him, and nobody probably ever will again.

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

It is a lousy way to go-at the same time, it's not much fun when your mind is there and your body is crumbling out from under you.

I comfort myself in the fact that he was all there until his late-eighties.

[skyshoes]

I remember when each night while my, WWII old man would religiously watch Walter Conkrite. I took a week and added up the knee jerk death and casualty numbers posted each night reported by Walter, Chet and David . Numbers like: 23,000 North Vietnamese killed, 8,000 Vietcong killed, 153 South Vietnamese killed, 7 Americans killed 53 wounded. Adding up for a week, I told my old man that in a weeks time we had decimated the population of North Vietnam. I told him that my high school had contributed one seventh of that weeks death toll, I had just heard that Roy Girdon the cool senior in my school with the olive and yellow convertible 57 Chevy had just been killed. It was a relief some years later when uncle Walt actually "read" what he was reading. RIP

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

the only time cronkite bended his journalistic objectivity was over the war.

it was then LBJ knew he had lost the hearts of the people. (not that he'd ever won them.)