Loss of a Legend

This past weekend we lost a legend. He probably won't be honored at the Staples Center or any other arena in the world. He probably won't have 24 hour coverage of his funeral. He probably won't have much of a mention in the news at all other than to recount his passing as the news readers of today transition to the latest news stories. In fact there probably won't be very much hoopla or loss for the majority of us out there but the fact remains that with the passing of Walter Cronkite, we've lost someone very important. For a lot of us younger Americans we're probably too young to have remembered seeing Walter Cronkite on CBS news. I can only recall a few instances of seeing him on TV back in 1981 but for me he was what I came to know as the 'voice of the space program'.

I found it highly ironic and a touch sad that Cronkite passed away just a few days before the 40th Anniversary or what was likely to have been his most famous broadcasts during the Apollo 11 moon landing. While Neil Armstrong's word will live on in posterity, without a doubt, the voice and narration provided by Cronkite during countless hours of coverage during space missions is what endeared him to the American public. In reading accounts by many astronauts, both past and present, there was a great deal of admiration and respect for Cronkite. He reported the facts without being overly technical. He showed the same enthusiasm and fascination with the space program that many people undoubtedly felt. In seeing old footage of him, it's no wonder to me why people found his news reports so exciting, he exuded that same level of excitement himself.

Prior to that historic day of course, many will remember his broadcast from the day Kennedy was shot in 1963. You could hear the emotion and pain in his voice as he struggled to report the facts that were coming out of Dallas that November afternoon. It was a terrible day but because of Cronkite's reports, the public knew what was happening and could likely see that they were not alone in feeling grief. I mean if someone like Walter Cronkite could show on television how overcome with emotion he was then anyone could. So important was his influence that President Johnson is once supposed to have remarked that if he'd "lost Cronkite('s support)" then he'd "lost Middle America".

It was because of Walter Cronkite that the term news anchor was coined. Due to his covering the conventions of both political parties during the turbulent 1950's and 1960's he became an established icon who always attempted to 'report the news, not become it'. Thought some would argue that he wasn't neutral or unbiased in his reports when it came to things like politics, that's not surprising but what was surprising was that unlike today, he was still respected for his opinion, whatever it may have been. As he used to famously sign off, "and that's the way it is." With that simple statement he solidified the understanding that the news he reported was just that, the news. No spin; no personal bias. The days he omitted that phrase from his sign-off were the days he finished his broadcast with a personal opinion or an editorial. He wanted the people to know the difference between fact and opinion. There are thousands of reporters around the world today and news coverage is continuous thanks to the internet but not many of them are of Cronkite's ilk.

He began his career as a United Press reporter reporting extensively during World War II. He covered American soldiers in North Africa and during Operation Market-Garden. He flew in bombers over Germany to showcase American aviators and covered the cold and bitter fighting during the Battle of the Bulge. He helped bring attention to the Watergate scandal to television the way Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein broke the story in the print media. His was the distinctive voice that I used to hear every time I went to the Air and Space Museum to see one of the best IMAX films on the space shuttle program, "The Dream is Alive". That was how I first came to know about Walter Cronkite and I'll always be thankful for that. I think he was one of the reporters who helped report on some of the most turbulent years in this country's relatively young history and his loss will be tremendous. And that's the way it is.