"And That's the Way it Was"

Walter Cronkite was born in a normal household in Missouri to a Dentist and a homemaker. He became so iconic, it’s hard to imagine that he had humble beginnings just like anyone else.

While he was very young, he read an article in “Boy’s Life” about the life of a reporter. He was instantly enamored, and just knew that was what he wanted to spend his life doing. He started gathering experience by working on his high school newspaper and yearbook.

He later went to the University of Texas at Austin to study political science, economics and journalism, but he never graduated. The call of the press was too loud to ignore. Instead, he chose to fulfill his childhood dream by working at the Houston Post.

In 1939 he started working for the United Press. Then the world started to change, and he jumped at the chance to report on it. He went to Europe to cover World War 2. He was part of the “Writing 69th,” which was a group of reporters who were instantly thrust into some of the most important developments in the war, including the D-Day invasion, bombing missions over Germany, and later, the Nuremburg war trials. He delivered his front line written commentary.

Television emerged, forever changing the way the world was reported on; not with written words, but spoken ones. At first resistant to a job at CBS, he finally took the TV job in 1950. Television was not considered to be a “serious” journalistic job. Radio and print were taken much more seriously. His first job was pretending to interview historical figures such as Joan of Arc or Sigmund Freud, for a show called, You are there. His famous last line for these programs was: “What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times… and you were there.”

Throughout his tenured career at CBS, he reported on a lifetime of events, indeed the stories that changed our lives including JFK’s assassination, the Vietnam war, The Apollo 11 mission, which left him speechless, The Cuban Missal crisis, and Watergate to name a few.

He recognized the limitations of TV, and it’s inability to give the whole story. He said, in 1952, “I wanted to end every broadcast saying, “For more details, see your local newspaper.” Even after his many broadcast successes, he never lost his true love for the written word. In 1994 he told the American Journalism Review, “We’ve got a great percentage of our population that, to our great shame, either cannot or, equally unfortunate, will not read. And that portion of our public is growing. Those people are suckers for the demagogue.” Ironically it is television he blames for the current impression our modern society has that reading isn’t necessary.

In a day when the news was all that was reported, not the corresponding feelings that the media thought you should have as well, Cronkite became such a trusted and influential authority. He truly had his finger on the pulse of American society. In fact, when President Lyndon B. Johnston learned that he opposed the Vietnam War, he said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”

Do you think the legacies of any of the current politicians will be this strong? Their level of competence or talent is irrelevant. Can you truly imagine feeling a void this big for any of the more abrasive, acidic commentators? Cronkite made his way into everyone’s family. He was like a trusted uncle. He didn’t tell you what to believe. He didn’t judge you for what you believed. He just reported the news. And that’s the way it was.

c. 2009