but he saw only what he thought fit to report and he had a strong screen presence to report it.

in other words, never mind that Kennedy was taken down by some sort of conspiring group, never mind that Vietnam was started under false pretenses through a false flag operation, never mind the illegal activities of the CIA, the only things reported were those things he felt were PERMITTED to be reported.

Yes, he was better than the average bear. But then all the bears are only talking heads, themselves subject to agendas, willful ignorance, or their own stupidity.

BTW, I think I spotted him once in Maine in '89 at a restaurant on Little Deer Island, eating with what for the life of me looked like some of the Kennedy clan.

It would take someone having the insight on the web not to end a piece on an iconic figure like Walter Cronkite by asking for letters.

The Web (and increasingly wide swaths of our society) is fueled by the 10,000-monkeys-at-keyboards school of cultural production. Even professional Kulturträger websites always have this lurking just below the surface to keep their audiences coming back for more (and being exposed to more Google Ads). Those 10,000 monkeys (myself included) have had to do nothing to establish their bona fides in order to see their thoughts and opinions broadcast to the entire world. This addictive, illusory "empowerment" mimics equivalence with the intellectual and moral authority of those who have had to do things like receive specialized training, work in a professional setting, report calmly in extreme situations, talk with people who actually have authority to make life- or society-altering decisions, and work long hours slogging through reams of raw information. What made Cronkite Cronkite was that back then we knew that we were not Cronkite and did not pretend to be. The Web let us monkeys out of the barrel in order to create an audience, by telling us, implicitly and explicitly, that whatever we produce/analyze/opine is as meaningful as what is produced/analyzed/opined by anyone else. Technology has made it cheap to do so. We 10,000 monkeys--each one bethinking himself to Cronkite-like heights rather than recognizing that we are engaged in not much more than social grooming--by our nature will never cede intellectual and moral authority to anyone the way we did in the 60s and 70s to Walter Cronkite.

For those who might get puffed up with indignation that this is elitist or anti-democratic: no. It has nothing to do with the value of individuals in our society; it has everything to do with the value of the public over the private, and knowing that there is a difference between the two. Walter Cronkite understood that and was able to create for his nation a public icon that had great value for all of us who watched him nightly, especially during Vietnam and Watergate, no matter what our private opinions were.

And, yeah, I get the irony and hypocrisy of posting this. Flame away. It's only pixels and bandwidth.

Good Bye Walter Cronkite- And his piece Americas Disastrous Drug Wars. see link-click on deeply imbedded

Deeply remembers Walter Cronkite from the fifties onward. He was a champion during the Vietnam War when he told it like it was, and caused Lyndon Johnson not to run for reelection in 1968. Sadly, we ended up with Tricky Dick and Republican shenanigans much like those of the recent Bush administration. Dare One say Republicans, hypocrites and criminals all. It almost seems so.

Cronkite retired too early. The nation would have been better served had he kept his position, his place on the news. Cronkite did not suck up to sit at the tables of power, he was invited. His integrity dwarfs that absent quality in the 'TV journalists?' of today. Here is a report he did in 1996 on America's Disastrous Drug War.

Walter Cronkite. We need more like you Now.

When listening to "Crewcut" you felt that you got the true story that was not embellished with half truths and suppositions. It was an experience to look forwarrd to.

Singnomore

Read anything Joan Walsh writes and there's an ideological sway to it. This is what journalism has devolved to. The integrity of a Cronkite is a hard obstacle for any young journalist to overcome if he has it. It makes work hard to find. A Walsh, Hannity, Olberman,Maddow and Mathiews career depend on maintaining that party line. Doing the masters bidding. The second they even consider taking a stand against the party line they know the hit squads are coming to assasinate them. Somewhere thier career became more valuable to them than thier integrity. Cronkite was all about the career. Getting the unbiased truth of each story to the people was what meant the most to him Barbara Walters, Rita Braver, Don Hewitt, Connie Chung have all stated today. Joan and the rest merely ask ; how can I make my point or get the best dig in to the opposition? We will miss your kind Walter,but, that's the way it was.

You're an ignorant piece of trash for your Cronkite comments. He only reported what he could substantiate, not rumors or hate. He stood against Viet Nam. He did hang with Kennedys, he was liberal so what? He was true to his job, I'm a Conservative that would take Walter Cronkites word over almost anyone period. That is what we have lost in today's journalists. The millions of us who grew up watching him never really knew what party he supported or belonged to. That is something you cannot say today about most anchors. We evolved past the rabble rousers to news and since Cronkite retired, we aparently devolved back to the rabble rousers and mob agitators that you seem to relish and enjoy.

Cronkite said all of what he and his colleagues did within television news - as an attempt at a new journalistic form based on immediacy, real-time delivery, and yoked, unfortunately, to show business - was done for the first time.

As for the news itself, shorn of the theatrical trappings, Cronkite said he regretted that the standards set by CBS News didn't stick.

The debate today about journalism still rests on those standards and questions Cronkite raised well after his retirement.

But CBS itself caved several times during key moments when the government pushed back against coverage it didn't like.

Murrow was eased out. Cronkite, a company man, didn't grumble publicly when he was replace by Rather; but last night, former CBS correspondent Daniel Schorr said Cronkite didn't want to give up his position. TV news being what it is, the decision was based on a new calculation about ratings; and too, CBS chose Rather over Roger Mudd.

As for Rather, CBS let him go instead of nailing the truth about the Bush military record once and for all.

Somewhere along the way, it was suggested within reports on the media industry, that such power as Cronkite wielded would never be seen again, or perhaps not allowed.

Whatever the circumstances of the phenomenon of the "great news anchor," we will not "see his like again."

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