No one writing about TV could ignore the passing of Walter Cronkite, who was, with Edward R. Murrow, one of the most revered and iconic figures in TV-news history.
There are many things to be said about Cronkite, all of them good — a rare thing in eulogizing. Everyone has noted that Cronkite was a trusted if sometimes curmudgeonly newsman. Milestones about which Cronkite reported with clarity and depth have been detailed again and again — the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the moon landing, the race riots of the 1960s.
What has not been mentioned and deserves tribute is that Cronkite was the last of the iconoclast TV journalists.
What’s that, you may well ask? That’s a TV journalist who does not pander to, swoon over or pay homage to those in power, but rather takes them to task as if he is leader of the Fourth Estate indebted to the people to whom he is reporting.
Cronkite was very much that — a leader of the Fourth Estate during one of the most demanding and changeable periods in American history. His news career began during WWII and ended as the Berlin Wall was being torn down. During his years as anchor of CBS news, Cronkite did what is today unthinkable: He challenged the status quo.
It’s difficult to imagine a news anchor taking a stand on a political or social issue today. We know the news is supposed to be impartial, but impartiality does not mean ignoring the facts.
Cronkite was not impartial. He was diligent. Cronkite witnessed the news and reported the facts with an assiduousness rarely seen today. The facts as Cronkite reported them often were at odds with what those in power wanted, but he didn’t care.
The most pivotal reporting of Cronkite’s career was about Vietnam.
On his Feb. 27, 1968 newscast, Cronkite announced, “To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past.”
Cronkite ended that broadcast as he ended all his others: “And that’s the way it is.” But that wasn’t the way it was then, and it certainly isn’t the way it is now. Neither anchors nor reporters stand up to the powers-that-be.
Cronkite never flinched. On May 29, 1971, he took on the Nixon administration, saying, “Many of us see a clear indication on the part of this administration of a grand conspiracy to destroy the credibility of the press. Short of uncovering documents, which probably do not exist, it is impossible to know precisely the motives of this conspiracy. But is it too much to suggest that the grand design is to lower the press’ credibility in an attempt to raise their own and thus even — or perhaps tilt in their favor — the odds in future electoral battles? Nor is there any way that President Nixon can escape responsibility for this campaign. He could reverse the anti-press policy of his administration. It attacks on many fronts: often reiterated but unsubstantiated charges of bias and prejudice from the stump, the claim of distortion or even fakery planted with friendly columnists, the attempts to divide the networks and their affiliates, harassment by subpoena.”
When asked if he had regrets about his long career, Cronkite said, “What do I regret? Well, I regret that in our attempt to establish some standards, we didn’t make them stick. We couldn’t find a way to pass them on to another generation.”
Our regret should be the same, and that with Cronkite’s passing, so goes the last bastion of TV-news anchors whose first and last dedication was to reporting the news — no matter what those in power thought about it.