And That's the Way It Isn't

For thirty years, Americans shared their dinners with a beloved houseguest named Uncle Walter.

Anyone who has logged onto Google today has seen the Doodle honoring the 100th birthday of legendary reporter and news anchor Walter Cronkite. In my childhood he shared a place with the other avuncular Walter in my life, one with the last name of Disney.

As the CNet report states:

"Cronkite, who reported for CBS from 1950 until his retirement in 1981, is remembered for embodying a reporting approach based in objectivity, accuracy, fairness and integrity. He was also an outspoken advocate for respecting the standards of responsible journalism."

I can just remember the black and white images on my family's old console television. The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. The name was as rock solid as the man through turbulent times. Yet I can still see the tears streaming down his face as he told a stunned nation that its youthful, charismatic leader was dead.

Other images. Riots. Cities burning in the night when the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered. It was all adult stuff, but I could hear the tension in Cronkite's voice. And although I didn't understand it at the time, I felt that something incredibly wrong was taking place.

But amid all the tragedy, Cronkite was never more in his element than when reporting on the NASA space program. Like a little boy, he could barely contain his glee as the mission controller called out - ten...nine...eight....

I was eleven years old, and along with 202,676,946 fellow Americans, and much of the world, I watched Neil Armstrong take that one small step for man. The microphone of my Panasonic portable cassette player was draped over the tinny speaker of our 19" color TV as I recorded Walter Cronkite's coverage of Apollo 11.

Cronkite also saw another launch, this one of a weekly news anthology called "60 Minutes." After his retirement in 1981, Cronkite was openly critical of what news broadcasting had become. He credited "60 Minutes" with the commercialization of news, which until that time had been a 'loss leader.' "60 Minutes" forever erased the line between news and entertainment, and news was now expected to turn a profit.

Cronkite closed his nightly broadcasts with his signature quote, "And that's the way it is."

Unfortunately, that's the way it is.

For a short clip of Cronkite at his most childlike, reporting on his favorite topic, go to:

cbsnews.com/news/to-the-moon-45-years-later-remembering-apollo-11