Friday Night: Walter Cronkite, CBS Anchor, Most Trusted American, and Media Channel Advisor, Dead At 92

July 16th, 2009 - by: danny

TODAY IS MANDELA DAY: Happy birthday, Nelson Mandela (91)

AP: JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Nelson Mandela’s fans celebrated the anti-apartheid icon’s 91st birthday Saturday by emulating him with good deeds, reading to the blind, distributing blankets to the homeless or refurbishing homes for AIDS orphans.

At a Mandela Day concert in New York tonight. Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Aretha Franklin and others are to perform for the benefit of Mandela’s AIDS foundation.

I will be there tonight and report tomorrow.

WALTER CRONKITE HAS DIED
MANY TRIBUTES AND ASSESSMENTS
CRONKITE’s STATEMENT OF SUPPORT FOR MEDIACHANNEL.ORG

There will be no moonwalking for this icon although there might have been because Walter Cronkite who died on earth, Friday night, was remembered for many stories but especially his coverage of the trip to the moon.

The New York Times reported it this way. It was at 8:11 PM. “He was 92 and his son Chip announced his father’s passing.”

He had cardiovascular disease, although the official cause of death was reportedly complications of dementia. CBS which forced him into mandatory retirement – even as his successor Dan Rather was allowed to remain on the air until age 70 when he was forced out in a media scandal that wasn’t – interrupted its programming for the announcement. CBS is the same network which earlier this week – and these events are not comparable and nowhere near on the same wave length – killed WBCN in Boston, the legendary rock station I worked for as the News Dissector/Director to turn it into a sports hub. (The head of the network’s news Division, Sean McManus, is a former CBS Sports exec.)

The NY Times reported: Mr. Cronkite anchored the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981, at a time when television became the dominant medium of the United States. He figuratively held the hand of the American public during the civil rights movement, the space race, the Vietnam war, and the impeachment of Richard Nixon. During his tenure, network newscasts were expanded to 30 minutes from 15.

Said Mike Wallace: “We were proud to work with him – for him – we loved him.”

He had said: “”This is but a transition, a passing of the baton. A great broadcaster and gentleman, Doug Edwards, preceded me in this job and another, Dan Rather, will follow”

Cronkite was an emblem of an era, now long past when network news ruled the airwaves. He was there on all the big stories, especially the Kennedy assassination where he broke down for a second, showing his own humanity. He gave an interview to Globalvision for our film, BEYOND JFK, saying he was no longer sure if there has been only one assassin.

Years later, he stood up, left “the chair” in one broadcast to show us the latest on Watergate. Earlier, he traveled to Vietnam and pronounced the war as unwinnable. “When we lose, Walter Cronkite, we lose the country,” or words to that effect, was what President Lyndon Johnson said.

Years later, I worked at ABC with Stanhope Gould, the producer of some of his most outspoken broadcasts. I was most touched Friday night by the reminiscences of the people who worked with him like my former colleague Sylvia Chase, and Susan Zirinsky, CBC will broadcast a tribute to him Sunday at 7 in the 60 Minutes slot. The cable nets all focused on his death–as they had on Michael Jackson’s. CBS ran regular programming as they did decades ago when the management there ran reruns of “I Love Lucy” instead if covering an important hearing on the Vietnam War. Then CBS News President Fred Friendly who had been Ed Murrow’s partner resigned. CBS interrrupted but dud not pre-empt entertaining program on the night Walter Cronkite died.

CBS reported, “Known for his steady and straightforward delivery, his trim mustache, and his iconic sign-off line -”That’s the way it is” – Cronkite dominated the television news industry during one of the most volatile periods of American history. He broke the news of the Kennedy assassination, reported extensively on Vietnam and Civil Rights and Watergate, and seemed to be the very embodiment of TV journalism.

RELATED: There’s a story behind the famous line “and that’s the way it is.”

CNN Newsroom writer in Atlanta, Clint Deloatch, recalls his days as a summer intern for CBS when Walter Cronkite anchored CBS Evening News.

“Cronkite came to be the sort of personification of his era,” veteran PBS Correspondent Robert McNeil once said. “He became kind of the media figure of his time. Very few people in history, except maybe political and military leaders, are the embodiment of their time, and Cronkite seemed to be.”

Added the LA Times in one more praise poem to his impact:

“Cronkite was not just a newsman; he was — like Edward R. Murrow, who brought him to CBS and television — as close a thing to the idea of a newsman as his age imagined. Except perhaps for Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, his high-powered NBC competition, all TV news anchors, news readers and news reporters, even the most august of them, seemed like variations on his theme, shadows of his Platonic ideal. A decade after his retirement from the anchor’s chair, he was still being named the most trusted man in network news.

How to account for this? It was more than just intelligence and talent. The news that Cronkite reported was barely distinct from the news his colleague-competitors reported. (And to the extent it was, it was not the source of his regard.) It must have been something more basic to his bearing and manner of being. He was serious, but good-humored; he had a common touch without being folksy; he was impartial but not amoral, disinterested but not detached, above the fray but not without a point of view, though he never made himself the story. He later expressed regret at his momentary breakdown reporting the Kennedy assassination as behavior not befitting an anchor, but it was exactly that mix of feeling and restraint that defined him.”

At the same time, in his later years, Walter Cronkite abandoned the pretense of only being above the fray and started speaking out as an internationalist for arms control and world federalism, and on many other global issues. He supported progressive causes but never too blatantly. He was very conscious of his image and reputation and identification with the media and power elite. He lived up the street from the United Nations and was often a speaker at UN events.

HuffPo: Walter Cronkite’s Words: Read His Blogs

He was also outspoken in his concerns about the deterioration of journalism in our time and supported Mediachannel.org when we asked him to attend our launch event. He had another appointment that night but agreed to tape a message that we have proudly highlighted on our home page.

Here it is, with some comments from readers. We will feature more coverage of his impact, his ideas, his love of our country and deep belief in an informed citizenry. He changed less over the years than the media system that embraced him symbolically but then, often betrayed the values he championed. He was, like all of us a man with his own contradictions, having been shaped by the World War 2 era.

Dissenting comment to all the wall-to-wall nostalgia and sentimentality on cable news nets, by Buzzflash.com: “Corporate MSM journalists covering the death of Walter Cronkite is like Jeff “Beauregard” Sessions paying homage to MLK. It’s a travesty.”

Walter Cronkite On The Media – And The MediaChannel. [You can watch a video of this speech here]

Good evening, I’m Walter Cronkite. I really wanted to be with you in person tonight for Globalvision New Media’s launch of the new Internet site the Media Channel, but unfortunately I was called out of the country. Yet the issues that led to the creation of this unique global resource, and the crisis that’s facing all of us who work in and care about journalism and the media, are so profound that I simply felt compelled to tape this message so that you would know that I am with you in spirit at least.

As you know, I’ve been increasingly and publicly critical of the direction that journalism has taken of late, and of the impact on democratic discourse and principles. Like you, I’m deeply concerned about the merger mania that has swept our industry, diluting standards, dumbing down the news, and making the bottom line sometimes seem like the only line. It isn’t and it shouldn’t be.

At the same time, I’m impressed that so many other serious and concerned people around the world are also becoming interested in holding media companies accountable and upholding the highest standards of journalism.

The Media Channel will undoubtedly be worth watching and taking part in. I am intrigued by its potential, and its global reach. The idea that so many leading groups and individuals around the whole world have come together to share resources and information about a wide range of media concerns is very promising, and I urge you to make the Media Channel your media ‘bookmark’ and your portal to the Internet.

I’m particularly excited about one aspect of the Media’s Channel’s work: its encouragement to people inside the media to speak up – to speak out about their own experiences. Corporate censorship is just as dangerous as government censorship, you know, and self-censorship can be the most insidious form of pulling punches. Pressures to go along, to get along, or to place the needs of advertisers or companies above the public’s need for reliable information distort a free press and threaten democracy itself.

I’m pleased that the Media Channel opens an immediately available resource for media whistle-blowers. Anonymity will be protected, of course – if their stories check out, of course. And, of course, are backed up with the facts.

We have all been supportive for years of dissidents around the world who take great risks to stand up for what they believe in. But here at home, in our own industry, we need to make it possible for people to speak out when they feel they’ve been wronged, even if it means shaming newsrooms to do the right thing. Journalists shouldn’t have to check their consciences at the door when they go to work for a media company. It ought to be just the reverse.

As I’ve said on other occasions, the strength of the American system is possible and can be nurtured only if there is lively and provocative dissent. In a healthy environment dissent is encouraged and considered essential to feed a cross-fertilization of ideas and thwart the incestuous growth of stultifying uniformity.

We need to encourage and support those among us who face either overt or covert threats – or even a more subtle absence of encouragement to search out the truth. We all know that economic pressures and insecurities within news organizations have reduced the scope and range of investigative reporting. Sometimes projects are spiked with just a simple phrase: “It’s not for us.”

We’re always ready to speak out when journalists are at risk. But today we must speak out because journalism itself is at risk. That’s why I’m speaking out and reaching out to you tonight, to tell you that I like the idea of the Media Channel and want to encourage your participation. And that’s the way it is.” — Walter Cronkrite

Responses to “Walter Cronkite On The Media – And The MediaChannel”

Posted on 03 Apr 2007 at 10:06 pm by shirley steinman

Right on, Mr. Cronkite! The apparent lack of journalistic honesty, and curiosity, in news reporting has been my biggest gripe (and fear!) through these last 6-plus years. To parrot the administration on all things is not journalism. It is my prayer that a new dawn will come to those who dispense the news, the real news, not just the mouthings of corporations and politicians. What sort of hold do owners of the media have on their journalists?

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Posted on 18 Apr 2007 at 11:23 pm by mike

News reporting, the new gold rush. Facts, hearsay, opinions, guesses, delusions, lies, all comers welcome. Truth be damned!

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Posted on 26 Apr 2007 at 12:39 pm by Claude Barnhart

Sadly, “The News” has gone disastrously downhill since Walter has left the forefront. As he has described, there is one shining star left in the void that remains after the major media has sold out to the present administration and corporate America. I’ve placed mediachannel.org first in my list of news bookmarks. Danny and Rory, keep up your great work. And, thanks for all you’ve done.

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Posted on 28 Apr 2007 at 3:00 pm by JL Koonce

Walter Cronkite, Aaron Brown, Ted Koppel, please come back! This giant issue of journalistic independence and integrity is one of THE most critical today if we want any hope of a safe future/world for ourselves and our children.How do we develop and support journalists with integrity? We have a few, but they seem harder and harder to find these daysÃ¢â‚¬Â¦.a vanishing breed. Support MediaChannel.org!!!

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Posted on 10 May 2007 at 5:02 pm by hobojo

We sure could stand to have the truth ring out instead of the propaganda the MSM is spewing now.

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Posted on 21 May 2007 at 12:34 am by DHFabian

I grew up watching Walter Cronkite every evening, and I don’t believe he would have a chance if he were starting out today. Today, the networks use the evening news shows (now “infotainment”, not legitimate news reporting)to sell political agendas. “Investigative journalism” has been confined to testing laundry detergents to see which one gives us whiter whites, brighter colors. Anything beyond that is simply not profitable, and profit takes priority over having an informed public.

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Posted on 19 Oct 2007 at 3:23 am by www.realnews.com

When I was a kid we watched the greatsÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ back when news was real and not for entertainment or sucking up to the political parties. Huntley & Brinkley and Walter Cronkite are the all time GREATS.

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Posted on 03 Jan 2008 at 10:00 pm by Peter Knopfler

Thank you Mr.Cronkite, I grew up, like many, listening to you, thank you for showing me what’s right, I miss your reporting greatly, you are an American Hero. Thank you, Peter.

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Posted on 17 Jan 2008 at 1:15 am by Melinda Iley-Dohn

I count myself fortunate to have been born the same time Edwin R Murrow was on the air and that I grew up watching John Chancellor and Walter Cronkite. Today’s kids grow up with gossip dressed as the news. In the age of Google and easy access to so many technological advancements there is no excuse for the lack of media integrity other than the fact that we have allowed corporate American entities to become the filter of what THEY see is all the news that is fit to have. We must demand our journalism back and boycott these purveyors of garbage before their nonsense becomes a part of history books accepted as fact for all posterity.

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Posted on 09 Feb 2008 at 6:58 pm by Vernon Clayson

Only those craving a return to the old days care what Walter Cronkite says. Eons ago he filled a need for the BS we thought we needed at the time. If you want to catch a semblance of Cronkite’s act check out Bob Schieffer, his dour and tired persona changes, but only slightly, when he praises Bill Clintons or criticizes George Bush, I know one of these days he will blurt out, “I love you, Bill.”, and when Bush completes his term, he, Schieffer, will announce, “America’s long nighmare is over, thank God that I have lived to see this day.” Why does CBS feel the need to have newspeople who seem to be attempting to put us into a hypnotic sleep? Even Katie Couric, who used to be so perky, seems on the edge of tears, I guess it’s as close as she can get to sounding all somber and contemplative, like Cronkite, terribly saddened by the day’s events. Small wonder that young people think the Daily Show is the latest news rather than a comedy skit.

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Posted on 12 Feb 2008 at 3:47 pm by Tim

May the uncensored exchange of ideas on the Internet continue to be the antidote to the mind numbing blather of cable and network television news. Walter Cronkite is an icon of the days when fairness and thoroughness were the hallmark of the medium.

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Posted on 04 Mar 2008 at 9:31 pm by Jah Red

Walter you are a traitor to the USA in that you want a global government to rule the world. http://youtube.com/watch?v=heegk07026I

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Posted on 06 Mar 2008 at 1:13 am by J. L. Stodgel

Mr Cronkite: How I wish that you could come out of retirement!! I trusted your reporting of the events of the day. Now, you can tell that all of them are simply reporting what they are told to report. Damned what the people want to hear. So again thank your for being forthright about Media Channel and THANK YOU Danny and all of your staff, if you have one. I look to your site for what is really going on in this topsy turvy world.

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Posted on 18 Mar 2008 at 5:29 am by Greg Peters

How can big media (BM) tell the people what they need to know about big business (BB) when BB owns BM? My profound thanks to those who have created Media Channel. My profound thanks to Mr Cronkite for speaking truth to power. Democracies cannot work without an informed citizenry. That’s why the US is in such bad shape in so many ways. Hopefully, the great economic crisis we are going through will wake people up enough to do something about the insidious corporate control of America and the world.

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Posted on 18 Apr 2008 at 6:20 pm by kayjay

It is truly sad that there are no more reliable sources of news in America today since Cronkite retired. One is more likely to get an accurate picture of the US from watching the BBC. I recall being an elementary school child in the Vietnam war era and begging my parents to stay up to watch the news. These days, young adults get their news exclusively from the parodies and comedy of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. What is even more distressing, is that instead of broadcast news setting the record straight, they resort to the same tactics of dumbing down and clowning. Print and radio are no better. We have become a nation of non-realistic reality show participants. And this whole presidential campaign has turned into a 7th grade popularity contest. I don’t care who can bowl, how one wears his or her hair and I certainly couldn’t care less which candidate people are more likely to want to have a beer with. I want to know who is going to fix the economy and get our sons and daughters back home.

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Posted on 27 May 2008 at 5:29 pm by marzig

I remember studying in History Class something about the Country being kept together by a reasonable 1/3rd of the people. How about the major networks taking a chance on us reasonable/sane 1/3 by bringing back real news men like Walter Cronkite, David Brinkely etc. (Brian Williams has potential) Ã¢â‚¬Â¦.They gave you the straight facts and no opinion, unlike news shows like Today who are at times down right telling us how we should think. Shame on you matt laur. You used to be a serious newsy when you started. Now just a glamour puss talking head!

Posted on 02 Oct 2008 at 4:23 pm by Kahoneez

You better go to YOUTUBE and watch the video what Walter Cronkite says about his support for a ” World Government ” ; Yielding Sovereignty ” because this guy is part of the World Federalist Society that advocates a ” World Gov. ” and that the U.S. will have to ” yield sovereignty ” for a world gov. and ” world laws ‘ , the same treacherous ideas that the Council on Foreign Relations spews out , that we should cede control of our country, to a handful of elites , i.e. the Rockefellers , Bush’s ; Rothschilds. He says EXACTLY that and what’s particularly appalling is he claims its for ” world peace” yet the cabal that he wants to give power to, are the same war profiteers that bankrolled most of the major WARS. Watch and learn before you drink the Cronkite kool-aid , he’s a traitor to democracy. Search – Cronkite , world government .

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Posted on 18 Jun 2009 at 6:59 am by club penguin

I trusted your reporting of the events of the day. Now, you can tell that all of them are simply reporting what they are told to report. Damned what the people want to hear. So again thank your for being forthright about Media Channel and THANK YOU Danny and all of your staff, if you have one. I look to your site for what is really going on in this topsy turvy world.’

Posted on 04 Jul 2009 at 2:03 pm by Lillie Oliver

On the day of Michael Jackson funeral Sarah Palin resigns as a result of over aggressive, sensationalism, and down right rude media behavior. She said, It cost them nothing to report damaging sensationalism, but it was well on the way to a million dollars in damage control for her. She said she loved her job and Alaska, but felt the media was more interested in tearing down character than in supporting efforts to build up. Her statements were from a live report from her home. And she made her reasoning perfectly clear.

Mediachannel will feature more coverage over the weekend. Your comments are welcome. Write danny@mediachannel.org

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Our Earlier coverage below

Ongoing Probe: 9 Dead, 50 Wounded in Bomb Blasts Near Big Hotels in Jakarta, Indonesia. One Indonesian I have been in touch with fears it may have been connected to recent elections.

ON THE AIR IN TEHRAN
MORE ON GOLDMAN GARBAGE
DEBATING PROTECTIONISM

At around 5 PM last night, I had a call From PRESS TV in Iran asking if I would come on for an interview to discuss an article in the London Times reporting that Israel was actively planning to attack Iran? The “booker” on the other side of the phone was alarmed. “Please do a live interview at 6 PM (our time, 2:30 AM in Iran.) It’s important.”

I found the article dateline Jerusalem quoting an unnamed Israeli Defense official who confirmed that Israeli war ships with nuclear weapons had traveled through the the Suez Canal on their way to the Persian Gulf. After I found the piece on the Information Clearing House site, I could understand their sense of urgency. So I printed it out, slipped it in my pocket and asked the man in Tehran to arrange for a cab. It was rush hour in New York and I know it wouldn’t be easy to get to Rockefeller Center on time.

They called back to say it was too late to get a car, ‘Could you get a cab, please.’ Now I know that’s tough to do in a NY rush hour but I said I would try. It was now 5:15, and after 5 cabs went by, I saw one and muscled out someone else to get it. After all, this was urgent.

We took off quickly, but then predictably found ourselves stuck in traffic on Sixth Avenue. Nothing was moving. Nothing at all. And then the driver told me that traffic was being re-routed at 42nd Street. Sixth Avenue was closed. “Oh didn’t you hear,”he said, “I think Obama is in town. Of course. He was, speaking to the NAACP. Midtown had become a “frozen zone,” in Secret Service parlance. When the meter hit $9 I was still at 40th St. NBC and the GE Building is at 49th.

So I paid up and hoofed it, just arriving in time. In the lobby, I ran into entertainment columnist Roger Friedman, formerly of FOX and the NY Post. He had just written a piece on my former station. He was there to tape an interview with the Today Show. I ran into radio talk show host Joe Madison who was there waiting to do the Ed Schultz show on MSNBC.

In contrast, I was broadcasting electronically via satellite to Tehran, not to be seen or heard by my countrymen and women. Typical!

As it turned out, “the fiber” had broken down somehow, whatever that means. The Iranians said it was NBC’s fault, of course. NBC blamed PRESS TV. That led to a 20 minute delay. I was cooling my heels watching some drivel on CNBC. When I finally got on, they didn’t have much time for more than just a few questions. So much for my exposure in the midnight sun of the Islamic Republic.

When asked about the report – “Israeli Navy in Suez Canal Prepares for Portential Attack on Iran” with its quote from an unnamed Israeli official saying “this is preparation that should be taken seriously,” I smelled a rat.

It was one of those patched together pieces that reference A & B trying to get it to equal five. I said I thought it was one more psychologial warfare propaganda story, planted in the willing pages of Rupert Murdoch’s Times of London. (Murdoch calls himself a Christian Zionist.)

It was more neo-con nonsense aimed at worrying the Obama Administration, and freaking out the Iranians. The suggestion was that Israel would give up settlements if the US only lets it nuke Iran (to keep Iran from getting nukes, of course. I am sure that the paranoid on all sides would disagree with me, but the story struck me as fabricated BS by a government which is now paying people to post propaganda on websites.

Mercifully, the short Q & A ended. I found the men’s room and, wouldn’t you know it, the station called me my just as I was doing my business, almost leading to my making a a mess as a reached for the phone while I……. Whew. Not a great day.

I was glad to get out of there. Went downtown to see a screening of a short version of Rory O’Connor’s film HOLE IN THE WALL, which was the inspiration for Slum Dog Millionaire. Indian business people made up most of the audience. (See http://Globalvision.org for more on this great film on how NIIT, an Indian tech company, has helped erode the digital divide.) I thought of, and missed, the late Gil Rosselinii, the film’s co-director. The film has had a global impact in spreading the word about this innovative educational initiative to combat “information poverty.”

OBAMA AT THE NAACP CENTENNIAL

“We need a new mindset, a new set of attitudes — because one of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way that we have internalized a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect so little of ourselves,” he said.

“What is required to overcome today’s barriers is the same as was needed then — the same commitment. The same sense of urgency. The same sense of sacrifice,”…

“Our kids can’t all aspire to be the next LeBron or Lil Wayne. I want them aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers and rappers. I want them aspiring to be a Supreme Court justice. I want them aspiring to be president of the United States.” TRANSCRIPT

SONIA ON THE HOT SEAT

Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma pressed Sotomayor for the second day in a row to say under what circumstances she might accept – or rule – that there is a “fundamental” right to bear arms, as opposed to an “individual,” or less pervasive, right.

As she had earlier, Sotomayor declined to answer the question directly. Instead, she asked Coburn if he would want a justice to agree with him without hearing arguments or listening to the parties to a case. Sotomayor said, “I don’t know that that’s a justice that I can be.”

FINANCIAL COMMISSION TO PROBE CRISIS NAMED

Isaiah J. Poole wonders what it will be able to do: Let The Financial Inquest Begin

Now that congressional leaders have named the members of the Financial Services Inquiry Commission – what is often referred to as the “Pecora Commission” – we are going to see once again who is prepared to lay the groundwork for real financial reform and who is going to stand in the way.

Both Democratic and Republican leaders have named a total of 10 members of the commission, six Democrats and four Republicans, who are charged with identifying the decisions and actions that led to the current financial crisis. The good news is that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have named a commission chairman – Phil Angelides – who has a solid record of standing on the side of sound financial regulation and accountability.

The unfortunate news is that at least some of the Republican appointees have a track record of standing for precisely the opposite and of spreading falsehoods about the roots of the crisis. READ FULL STORY HERE

BEST:

American Ingenuity — Shuttle launch as Moon landing marked

Unsung hero of the Apollo mission [video]

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are the most famous people associated with the mission to the moon 40 years ago. But 400,000 people worked on the project to get the astronauts off the ground. One of them was Stanley Colson, who was a quality control manager for the first phase rocket of Saturn 5. Now aged 85, and living in a nursing home south of the Kennedy Space Centre, he talked about his recollections of the first launch.

From blogger, Driftglass:

“40 years ago we were a nation that spent billions of dollars on the crap shoot of putting three men on top of 3,200 tons of hellfire wrapped in an aluminum skin and firing the whole thing at a dead rock 240,000 miles away because our destiny demanded it.

40 years later we are a nation that will not spend billions to keep its 300 million citizens alive, healthy and productive because the insurance industry lobbyists who own our politicians forbid it.”

WORST:

MediaMonitorsNetwork.com: Iraq War Far From Over

“The American army went into Iraq six years ago in order to replace a tyrant with a Western-style democracy. They will leave behind a lesser tyrant ruling over a country riddled with corruption and racked by sectarian conflict.” READ FULL STORY HERE

The News Dissector