More On Mr. Cronkite: Learning From The Way He Was

If I were writing for print, my editor would have handed that last post back to me.

By making my headline, “Remembering Walter Cronkite,” I made a contract with you, the reader, to talk about my memories of Mr. Cronkite.

I should have told you that as an avid news watcher who was born in the mid-80s, I never saw Mr. Cronkite report that JFK was assassinated. I never saw how his exhaustive research into astronomy colored his broadcasts on the space program, or what he saw as his great disappointment: being at a loss for words when the first man landed on the moon.

For me, Mr. Cronkite was the epitome of journalistic standards. He’s the man we’re all compared with and the man we all revere. What struck me is not all the broadcasts he made throughout his life, but the effect he had on journalism after he “retired.”

"He used his halo to
bash his former employers
over the head."

-Paul Taylor

Whether it was strengthening the journalism program at Arizona State University or pressuring television to improve its coverage of politics, Mr. Cronkite made a difference.

Mr. Cronkite "was quite willing to use the moral authority he had gained as a broadcaster," said Paul Taylor, a former politics reporter at The Inquirer and the Washington Post. "He used his halo to bash his former employers over the head."

Though we may fall short of Mr. Cronkite’s high standards, as journalists, the least we can do to honor him is to try.

Next post, I’ll talk about how to be your own editor. I know its sometimes I still am trying to learn.

As Mr. Cronkite famously said, “And That’s The Way It Is”