When I was a kid, you had a choice between John Chancellor on NBC; Harry Reasoner and, later, Frank Reynolds on ABC; and Walter Cronkite on CBS. Though my parents were partial to John Chancellor, I always preferred Walter Cronkite, who died last Friday at the age of 92.
In the pre-24-hour news world, you didn’t confuse news with opinion. Cronkite delivered the facts. If the facts were ugly, Uncle Walter gave it to you straight. Sometimes, he didn’t bother hiding its effect on him. Uncle Walter told you JFK and RFK and Dr. King were gone, as were the Apollo 1 astronauts. He told you Vietnam was a mess and held our hands when Apollo 13 came home by the skin of its crew’s teeth. Uncle Walter was a reassuring voice when President Nixon turned out to be something less than a Lincoln or a Washington (or, really, a Rutherford Hayes or Grover Cleveland).
But I do have one really clear memory of Walter Cronkite. Believe it or not, I was only 3 at the time. I remember sitting in front of my parents’ tiny black-and-white Crosley on a hot summer night in 1969 watching those grainy images of Neil Armstrong coming down the lunar module ladder.
And now?
CBS started to annoy the hell out of me when Dan Rather took over for Walter. In 1988, Rather took it upon himself to try and bully the elder George Bush during an interview. Whether Rather’s questions were justified or not, his manner was less-than-professional, the sort of crap you expect to hear from Sean Hannity or Michael Moore.
9/11? We needed Cronkite then, than calm, reassuring voice telling us the cold hard facts. Instead, I flipped back and forth between CNN and Fox to get as much news as possible as the nation went nuts. CNN somehow decided it was a good idea to get James Carville’s take. So I flipped to Fox. This was when it became clear to me Fox News was many things, unbiased not one of them. Not when they have Al Haig saying to America “We’re going to lose some civil liberties, and Americans are just going to have to get over it.” The last thing I needed that terrible day was that bayou whack job waxing nostalgic for the good ol’ days of Bill Clinton or possibly the most egotistical right-winger born before Ann Coulter telling us sorry, but it’s a police state now.
But Cronkite did a half-hour newscast in a world that only got its national news on television once or twice a day. Today, Fox, CNN, and MSNBC have to fill 24 hours of news. Every time someone complains that the mainstream media isn’t covering their pet issue, I have to laugh in that person’s face and tell them I’m actually sick of hearing about it.
We live in a world now where opinion is mistaken for journalism and where every move a celebrity or politician makes is screamed at us from possible corner. The most horrific events of the day are covered in such minute detail that even the people affected are sick of hearing about it.
Jessica Simpson’s weight gain is not news. Mark Sanford’s roving member is not news. I doubt Cronkite would have bothered with it.
But if it was wondrous and historic or terrible and earth-shattering, Walter Cronkite is still the one guy you’d want to hear it from.
He will be missed.
Edged in Blue 
Funny how link hiking can lead us to new places. My first visit here, and so timely. I couldn’t agree more with your comments about Cronkite, then and now. Same for your comments about the “media” and “news” and who gives a d**n. I have a vague recollection of CNN being a news outlet, now it’s an ego-driven talk show collage.
Excellent – dare I say it? – Winter-torial. I’ll be back.