Walter Cronkite, Most Trusted Man in America, Dies at 92

Walter Cronkite, the renowned television broadcast journalist known for anchoring the CBS Evening News, passed away on Friday, July 17, 2009. The journalist was 92.

Throughout his career Cronkite became known as the "most trusted man in America." He covered stories ranging from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to the moon landing. He made televised appearances on the Mary Tyler Moore show and Murphy Brown, both times as himself.

It was not long ago that the Cronkite family released news that Walter Cronkite was extremely ill. It was learned that he suffered from cerebrovascular disease, and was not expected to recover. In the end, Cronkite lost his battle with the disease, passing away at his home in New York.

While reflecting on this devastating loss to the world of broadcast journalism, it occurs that there is a generation for whom the name "Walter Cronkite" is simply a cultural reference. Cronkite represents an image of what broadcast journalism "used to be." In discussing his death with others, the overwhelming majority of those spoken to responded similarly: "I didn't even know he was still alive."

Yet at the same time, Cronkite left his unmistakable mark on the field of journalism. While studying the recent launch of Space Shuttle Endeavor this past Wednesday with a group of soon-to-be-sixth-graders, discussions instantly went to the history of NASA and the still relevant image of the first man landing on the moon. In those moments, it is typically Neil Armstrong who gets the spotlight. But Walter Cronkite helped bring life to the moment with his enthusiastic broadcast coverage of the event. Cronkite would later reflect that the moon landing presented an "interesting emotional challenge" for him.

"When that vehicle landed on the moon, I was speechless," he would tell the CBS Nightly News in May of 2007. "Everybody there was up-cast. We were looking toward the stars, looking toward the moon."

Now, a new generation of stargazers looks toward the sky, where they watched the Endeavor take off on its mission, and perhaps knows next to nothing, if anything at all, of how Walter Cronkite contributed to their current awe. It was he, after all, who was captured in the ultimate state of awe in man's quest to conquer the moon; videos of his coverage frequently focus on his wordless reaction, a simple rubbing together of his hands, and a boyish grin that said everything the general public thought and felt at that moment. He showed us, and reminds us today, of the importance of those moments of sheer speechlessness. For those of us who work in the media in any form, he showed us how to relate to people, how to be honest in a dishonest world, and how to give it "how it is." For the general masses, he showed them what to expect for themselves, which was a special sense of greatness that he granted us by showing us that despite his stature, in moments like the moon landing he was just like the rest of us. That's the way, for Walter Cronkite, that it was.

That's the way it should be.

Sources:
CBS News, "Cronkite and the Lunar Landing", CBSNews.com