COMMENTARY
Jeff Simon: Walter Cronkite's place in TV news
How Walter Cronkite would have hated this. That’s my best guess. The first stories last week said he was “gravely ill.” The next wave said, no, he was merely struggling with some of the inevitable setbacks of being 92.
None of us at 92 (should we be lucky enough to get there) can ever be thought long for this world.
The confusion, according to that second wave of stories, came from CBS updating its Cronkite obit with new quotes, which it does periodically.
Those outside journalism might not understand that, but those inside do. When I first started working at The News as a copyboy four and a half decades ago, I was blown away by a spike in the composing room that was thick with the galley proofs of obituaries of famous people, all very much alive and all waiting for last-minute updates.
One could picture Cronkite, back when he was CBS’ nightly news, grumbling about all this and maybe even losing a bit of composure over it: “Which IS it? Gravely ill or merely very old? Let’s nail it down! Let’s get it right!” (An ancient journalistic exhortation. In the middle of horrible conflicting stories coming out of Washington in 1981, anchor Frank Reynolds legendarily lost it on the air over the Reagan Assassination attempt. But then, when you’re dealing in what we now call “real time” with a presidential assassination attempt, you’re about as stressed out as a journalist ever gets.)
Needless to say, it got a lot of us thinking about Cronkite, without question the most important TV journalist after Ed Murrow (a good argument could be made he’s more important, in fact). Twice in Cronkite’s tenure as “the most trusted man in America” as anchor of CBS Evening News, he was in the center of a radical recalibration of American power.
The first time came in February 1968, when the old war correspondent (and, until then, war supporter) returned from covering the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and agreed to Frank Stanton’s urging that he go on the air and pronounce his opinion that the Vietnam War was unwinnable. That’s when President Lyndon B. Johnson immortally told underlings, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the country.” LBJ didn’t run for re-election.
Then, during Watergate, CBS finally broke the mold of nightly coverage of many subjects—more than half the broadcast—in the first of two nights’ stories on the Watergate break-in.
That was the clincher. What CBS’ extraordinary gesture meant this time is that print journalists weren’t alone in pursuing the story to the utmost. Nixon was going to be out the door in a couple more years. It was only a matter of time before that final wave from the helicopter.
While Cronkite was, arguably, the living symbol of TV news’ greatest era, what I have to admit is that I never watched his nightly news during its heyday. That’s because I was a David Brinkley man, through and through. Brinkley’s irreverence and cool were matched by so many of NBC’s correspondents— John Chancellor, Sander Vanocur.
In the theater of news, Cronkite, to me, was already from another era. With his mustache and somewhat arch “You Are There” delivery of “that’s the way it is,” he had all the conspicuous avuncularity I had trouble believing in.
I still do. If you think of Cronkite as the essence of As the World Turns Anchordom, Charlie Gibson is the closest thing to him now in conspicuous avuncularity— Katie Couric is the furthest away.
She is not anyone’s “Aunt Katie.” She’s the Anchor As Celebrity in a debased Celebrity Age, a personality they report about on TMZ, the One Who Almost Certainly Knows More Than The News Can Tell. She substitutes knowing morning TV warmth for Brinkley’s cool irreverence. Lord knows why, but I trust both.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments
Learn more about our moderation system.