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The Most Trusted Man in America:
That’s the Way it Was By Sanford Socolow |
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CBS News Walter Cronkige, iconic CBS anchorman and managing editor of the
“CBS Evening News,” who presided for more than a generation over the
transformative and turbulent events of American history with grace and
reassurance. |
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CBS News Etched deeply into our
memories, Walter Cronkite announcing the death of President John F. Kennedy
on November 22, 1963. |
AP Walter Cronkite’s interview with President John F. Kennedy in September
of 1963, two months before his assassination. |
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By Sanford Socolow I am continually amazed at the
recognition and praise for Walter Cronkite since it has been 28 years since
he left his dominant position as most famous news personality except,
perhaps, for Edward Murrow. That
means that most Americans alive today never experienced him, except for
occasional cameo appearances after he left the daily television scene. When he stepped down as anchorman/reporter,
his ratings were higher than the combined
ratings of the three network news broadcasts and all internet and cable
newscasts at the same evening hour. The Most Trusted Man in America
always thought of himself as a basic wire service reporter. He had a history with United Press before
he joined CBS News, at a time when CBS News required that new hires have at
least five years of writing or reporting experience. The theory behind that requirement: CBS
News could teach the techniques of broadcasting but could not duplicate the
reportorial experience necessary. Fans of The Most Trusted Man in
America usually want to know “what was he really like?” The disappointing answer is that he was
really like he was on television and maybe that is why he was trusted and
appreciated. By that I mean “Uncle
Walter,” off screen, wasn’t the opposite of his benign image. Of course, he could be a demanding
taskmaster and there were many tough talks between him and his staff. Once, when I was Executive Producer
of The Evening News, I was invited to a screening of “The China Syndrome,” a movie with an
uncanny echo of the Three Mile Island Nuclear accident, in which
radioactivity was feared all over central Pennsylvania. The similarities, I thought, were dramatic,
since the movie was two years in the making.
Walter was also invited to the screening but skipped it because of a
schedule conflict. In his office, I
explained my amazement, and told him I thought we should do a sidebar story
about this movie/real life coincidence, since the Three Mile Accident was
dominating news coverage. Without
slipping a beat, he shouted at me, “I am not in the business of selling
tickets to some damned movie!”
Contrast that to what we see on our video newscasts today. When it was suggested he become anchorman of The
Evening News, he demanded the title, “Managing Editor.” He told me it was a deal breaker, as far as
he was concerned, unless he got it.
The title gave him (with management agreement) final say on what
stories The Evening News would carry and even how they were presented. In my memory, there never was any sort of
important disagreement between him and staff.
Remember, when he started, the staff and the Managing Editor had similar
backgrounds and outlooks about what a daily newscast should be. Now, of course, all anchorpersons, network and
local, have the title. I often wonder
if they understand what the title represented when it was adopted from
newspapers to television. When Cronkite, a veteran print reporter, first appeared
on the then 15 minute CBS Evening News, he ended the newscast telling viewers
(paraphrase): “Those are the news highlights.
Be sure to read your daily newspaper for the details.” It raised a storm with corporate executives, who
saw it as an invitation for viewers (and subsequently, advertisers) to leave
their television sets and go to newspapers for their news. After lots of tough talk, back and forth,
Walter agreed to back away from that sign off. That’s how his famous sign off, “And that’s
the way it is,” was born. Even that
sign off caused a tempest between Walter and Dick Salant, then president of
CBS News, who insisted we were NOT telling the audience “The Way It Is,”
because we couldn’t do it in an eight minute (of a 15 minute broadcast) news
hole. Salant was persuaded to go along
with it. Walter is father of three and grandfather of
four. His third grandson, Walter
Leland Cronkite IV, is an intern in the CBS News Washington Bureau, where
Walter (“Jr,” his father was a dentist) started his CBS News career. Anchorman Cronkite’s first assignment,
after being hired by Edward R. Murrow, then the corporate executive in charge
of CBS News, was anchor (the title had not yet been applied) of the 11 p.m. newscast
at WTOP-TV in Washington. The station
was then owned by CBS, and Murrow had responsibility for the various local,
as well as network, news operations.
The Korean War was in full fury and Walter decided to do a chalk talk
about the daily battle lines. This was possible since it was perhaps the last
“conventional” war (as opposed to guerilla wars). Each night they would
stretch a heavy paper map on a stretcher with broad outlines of the current
situation. As Walter described the
day’s actions, a stagehand, invisible behind the paper screen, would touch a
lighted cigar to the appropriate spot.
This lasted until the fire department noticed, and shut it down. This was an era in which television news
was so new (and still so junior to radio news) that production techniques were being invented
on an ad hoc basis. Back to the question about Walter’s real persona,
he had a ribald sense of humor. At
staff Christmas parties at his home, he would dance a mock strip tease, based
on his memories of a famous 1930s mid-Western strip tease artiste, Hinda
Wasser. Walter had a crush on Ms
Wasser. He mimicked her body movements
to an amazing degree. He played, or tried to play, a clarinet, not very
well. He was an avid dancer. Dining with him and Betsy, his beloved
wife, was always a chore, as he became more famous. Other patrons without restraint would come
to his table and ask for conversation or an autograph. Walter was unfailingly polite and
accommodating. But more disruptive to
his dinner mates, was his tendency to engage the intruder in conversation, asking about background and geography and
showing genuine interest beyond the call of politeness. And, finally, there was his dedication to the
craft and his belief in its importance if democracy was to work. After he retired from The Evening News, he
“came out of the closet,” as he put it, and showed his liberal colors. He was dismayed that after the September 11th
tragedy, the White House had a meeting with
television news executives, who agreed they would not broadcast the
Osama bin Laden videos which were being widely distributed elsewhere at the
time. On the other hand, he was
dismayed (for many other reasons also) when the Democratic Party
establishment pressed him to run for the Senate in the 1960s, but never once
asked him what his position was on various public issues of the day. Chances for the emergence of another such
dominating figure in the news universe are low. The proliferation of news outlets and
subsequent fracturing of the audience make it more difficult, maybe impossible. That’s the way it is. |
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