Posted on 11/04/2006 3:21:48 PM PST by Borges
`Uncle Walter' says he could cover news today, and that's the way it is
Walter Cronkite turns 90 years old today, and the renowned broadcaster has lost none of his lust for the news business.
``I would like to think that I'm still quite capable of covering a story,'' he told the New York Daily News this week.
After anchoring the CBS Evening News for nearly two decades, his voice can now be heard introducing one of his successors, Katie Couric.
Asked for his reaction when he was invited to do the introduction, he replied without hesitation: ``I would like to be doing the whole broadcast.''
Still, he said: ``I was honored to be asked and I must say rather surprised. I'm very pleased to have my little signature out there at the beginning of the broadcast.''
Cronkite, of course, was the first anchor of that broadcast -- which was also the first nightly news program. Having him introduce Couric, said Sean McManus, president of CBS News and CBS Sports, was ``in retrospect, obvious.''
``It speaks volumes about what CBS News stands for,'' he said. ``It says so much about our tradition and our foundation.''
Cronkite helped build that foundation through his work during a particularly transformative time in American history. He was there to interpret for attentive audiences (undistracted by today's dizzying array of news sources) major world events like the Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, the Watergate scandal, the Apollo 11 moon landing and the assassination of President Kennedy.
Cronkite is proudest of his coverage of the civil rights movement, the peace talks between Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin in the 1970s and the space program.
``The (moon landing) was certainly one of the greatest stories of the century and perhaps will be the greatest story of many centuries.''
Television news has changed since Cronkite and Huntley-Brinkley ruled the evening news roost. But Cronkite said the anchor's job hasn't changed much.
So which broadcast does ``Uncle Walter'' watch?
``I bounce around a little bit,'' he said. ``I think all the three major networks do a good job. I'm particularly fond of Jim Lehrer's report on public radio.''
And Couric?
``I think Katie's doing very well,'' he said. ``I would like to see just a little bit more hard news on the broadcast.''
These days Cronkite spends his working hours doing documentary narration and voiceovers, as well as some writing, although he gave up his syndicated column last year. A leg injury has kept him off the tennis courts for the past few years, but he still enjoys sailing. He does have one regret.
``I unfortunately have not been to Iraq,'' he said. ``It's the first war since (World War II) that I have not covered.''
Crankshaft declared the Viet Namese war unwinnable after the Tet Offensive.
" If I'm ever in spitting distance, yes, I will spit in his eye and tell him all about himself. "
I was in spitting distance of Cronkite a few years ago at the passenger boarding lounge at Narita Airport . He was in a wheelchair with an entourage of 4-5 people about to board and about 5 feet away from me . We made eye contact , but I said nothing to him . Despite my disdain for the man , I could never spit in his eye .
Carroll O'Connor was a flaming liberal you know.
I just watched one of the links in its entirety. Never knew it was out there. Thank you for providing it.
"still a liar." That's better.
Yeah, but Archie was right.
What smells like cheese?
I'm taking a class in Mass Communications and my research paper is TV News and ethics, my main focus is on Cronkite and the Tet Offensive and his report from Viet Nam. I'll post it in Dec. when it's done, but I've got interviews with CBS producers who tried to stop that report because they knew it was false. "Uncle Cronkite" knew that he had more power than the US President and intended to use it, and laughed about how the TV has given him the power to override the Constitution and over throw the President of the United States.
Very little has changed in the media, even Brit Hume and Fox News tried to influence the 2000 election with the Bush DUI story.
The only bright spot is FreeRepublic that has almost transformed into a media watch dog. Had it not been for Freepers, I believe, Dan Rather would have put Kerry in the White House.
You took the words right out of my mouth. I've been waiting for the news that this scum has dropped dead for 20 years.
I wish he would go and get lost in a back alley somewhere in iraq. Do you think his head will still be attached when he comes out?
Yes. Please post it.
Having actually lived it, in looking back, I can now see how manipulated we were, how innocent. McCarthy was delusional, and the US was so innately good that picking a war with people in rice paddies was 'beneath' us. I remember the news stories, every night, and the casualty listings.
I remember as a very young whipper snapper a breathless Dan Rather reporting on seeing the Zapruder film, and remember thinking, thanks to news reports, that it was a crock, even though no one believed a bullet could reverse trajectory in mid-air. Rather made his bones on that one.
See, I think about what America became after Kent State and the riots, post-Nixonian chaos, the greed is good folks, right down through the PC crowd of women's and protected status rights. The emasculation of America. Emasculation. Only Reagan reminded us the West still had a cowboy.
Men had to be sensitive because Father didn't know best any longer. Women had to wear the pants, cook dinner and party. Traditional was passe.
Then came the Net and places like FR now appear to be the only sites to find news not shot up our veins in the "he who controls the image controls the message" format. Now I can watch game shows or movies or soldiers getting shot through a terrorists lens on TV, and I can put on my hairshirt and start the nightly whippings...or I can maintain my senses and go out to the Net and read. At least for a couple more years.
The problem is becoming that after reading so much of this, you look at the tube and the drive to work and just think life is different. Then, you start wondering how it all got to this, and things go back to Cronkite and Carry, the lies we now know they told with straight faces, and you just want to do something. Marching in the Give Peace a Chance crowd is so 60s. Shouting with an angry fist as in the Chicago riots is just a farce. Rejoicing as in the Watts riots and S LA violence because OJ beat the system is just predatory.
Honor used to be something you dueled over. We came to think that was too violent, and that it was a police matter for people to be responsible for their actions. So, now we have no honor worth defending? No principles on which we stand firmly?
Mass Communications? For the 'masses' I suppose. Just remember in writing that even Severeid thought he had to explain long words, as though the people watching could not possibly be smart enough to understand. In actuality, it's the hicks who knew better all along.
I think I need a bumper sticker:
"ARCHIE BUNKER WAS RIGHT!"
Carroll O'Connor was a flaming liberal you know.
Today, it's "a civil war, a stalemate, etc.". At least today there are those of us who know BS when we hear it.
Several years ago an American General meet with General Vo Nguyen Giap, the American said to him, "you know, you never beat us once on the battle field." He said, "yeah, I know, but we didn't have to, we beat you on your own soil using your own people."---- If that isn't treason, I don't know what is.
I'll check it out, thanks.
The ears and legs are going.
;-)
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