WALTER CRONKITE visited The Gazette in 1996. He seemed right at home. It is not surprising. He had spent more than 40 years in the news business and television and radio studios and newspaper newsrooms were as comfortable to him as an old pair of house slippers.
For The Gazette staff, Cronkite’s face and voice were so familiar that it did not seem at all strange for him to appear in the flesh in the middle of a workday. After all, everybody knew Walter Cronkite.
As he moved through the office, chatting, shaking hands and having pictures taken with everyone, Cronkite seemed less like a visiting celebrity than a favorite uncle, in town to visit his nieces and nephews. It felt like a homecoming.
And that, for those born too late to have been a part of Uncle Walter’s family, was the secret behind his dominance of network news for almost 30 years. Millions of Americans felt that they knew him and knew that they trusted him. If Cronkite thought a story was important enough to be covered on the CBS Evening News, then viewers thought it was important, too. If he got angry enough to blow his top on camera, as he did at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, people thought something was going on that they should be angry about.
The news business has become too complex and fragmented to produce another news anchor as dominant as Cronkite. And it may not be a good idea for so much trust to rest on one pair of shoulders.
But it must be said that, while he held the job, Walter Cronkite proved himself worthy of every bit of that confidence.
Patrick S. Kelley
Editorial Page Editor
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Posted by Observer (anonymous) on July 21, 2009 at 2:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Walter Cronkite's liberal socialism is being well represented in the mainline media today. It is sure to be savored and honored by the Gazette's own Patrick Kelley.
For a look at the real "Uncle Walter":
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.vie...
n 1989, Cronkite spoke to a dinner organized by People for the American Way, a group founded by Norman Lear. His candid politics surprised even that audience.
* "I know liberalism isn't dead in this country," he said. "It simply has, temporarily we hope, lost its voice."
* "About the Democratic loss in this election ... it was not just a campaign strategy built on a defensive philosophy
. It was not just an opposition that conducted one of the most sophisticated and cynical campaigns ever. ... It was the fault of too many who found their voices stilled by subtle ideological intimidation."
* "We know that unilateral action in Grenada and Tripoli was wrong. We know that Star Wars means uncontrollable escalation of the arms race. We know that the real threat to democracy is half a nation in poverty. ... We know that religious beliefs cannot define patriotism. ... God Almighty, we've got to shout these truths in which we believe from the housetops. Like that scene in the movie 'Network,' we've got to throw open our windows and shout these truths to the streets and the heavens. And I bet we'll find more windows are thrown open to join the chorus than we'd ever dreamed possible."
In 1999, he appeared at the United Nations to accept the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award from the World Federalists Association. He told those assembled, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, that the first step toward achieving a one-world government – his personal dream – is to strengthen the United Nations.
"It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace," he said. "To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order."
In his acceptance speech, Cronkite added, "Pat Robertson has written in a book a few years ago that we should have a world government, but only when the Messiah arrives. He wrote, literally, any attempt to achieve world order before that time must be the work of the devil. Well, join me. I'm glad to sit here at the right hand of Satan."
Posted by open_eyes (anonymous) on July 21, 2009 at 3:27 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Actually, I think Patrick made a very good point. He said "while he held the job, (he) proved himself worthy."
I think Cronkite the anchor was pretty level and unbiased in his news coverage. Cronkite the man had his own preferences and beliefs just as we all do. The trick is, (or what a newsman is SUPPOSED to do, at least back then, apparently not anymore) - is to leave your own prejudices behind when you cover the news, and I think Walter did that. After he was no longer an anchor/newsman he was free to voice his own opinion, liberal or conservative, just like any American should be able to. Whether he wants to sit at Satan's right hand or not is his right as a person. As a news anchor, he should keep (and I think did) keep opinions like that out of his reporting.
And that's the trouble we have nowadays. We're stuck with media leaders that seem unable to separate the two.
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