The "Most Trusted Man" of 1970: Walter Cronkite

An American broadcast journalist who hosted CBS Evening News for 19 years, from 1962 to 1981, and often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being named in an opinion poll, Walter Cronkite received honors throughout his career, including a George Polk Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award, two Peabody Awards, several Emmy Awards, and was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter.

His story began on November 4, 1916, in Saint Joseph, Missouri, when he was born. Until 10, Cronkite lived in Kansas City, Missouri. His family then moved to Houston, Texas, where he attended San Jacinto High School and edited the high school newspaper. 

College for Cronkite began in 1933 at the University of Texas at Austin, where he joined the Daily Texan and became a member of the Nu chapter of the Chi Phi Fraternity. In addition, he became a member of the Houston chapter of DeMolay, a Masonic fraternal organization for boys. While at UT, Cronkite performed in a play with a fellow student, Eli Wallach. This performance ignited a flame, leading him to drop out in 1935 to concentrate on journalism.

After beginning his career at numerous newspaper reporting jobs covering both local News and sports, Cronkite finally entered broadcasting as a radio announcer for WKY in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His name on air was "Walter Wilcox." He would explain later that radio stations at the time did not want people to use their real names for fear of taking their listeners with them if they left. 

While working as the sports announcer for KCMO in Kansas City in 1936, he met his future wife, Mary Elizabeth "Betsy" Maxwell. Cronkite later joined the United Press International in 1937 until a job to join the Murrow Boys team of war correspondents was offered by Edward R. Murrow at CBS News, which would take his journalism career to the next level. 

Recognized as a top reporter in WWII by covering battles in North Africa and Europe, Cronkite was on board the USS Texas through her service of Operation Torch to the coast of North Africa and then Back to the US. Interestingly enough, he was granted flight on the Vought OS2U Kingfisher aircraft when Norfolk, Virginia, the origin of the operation, was in flight distance to beat the USS Massachusetts correspondence to the headline to issue the first uncensored news reports to be published about Operation Torch. 

Now an established war correspondent, Walter Cronkite became one of 8 journalists selected by the United States Army Air Force to fly bombing raids over Germany in a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress as part of the group called The Writing 69th. He landed with the 101 Airborne Division in Operation Market Garden to cover the Battle of the Bulge. Closing his war coverage years, he reported live over the Nuremberg trials and served as the United Press primary reporter in Moscow from 1946 to 1948.

During this time, he married his wife, Mary Elizabeth Maxwell Cronkite, and stayed married to her for nearly 65 years until her passing in 2005. They had three children.

After that, Cronkite joined CBS in 1950 in the up-and-coming television division, recruited again by Murrow. From 1951 to 1962, he anchored WTOP-TV's 15-minute late Sunday evening newscast Up To the Minute and Man of The Week in 1952.

It is said that Cronkite's role at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions coined the term "anchor" even though those before him had been given the same title. It simply did not hold the weight that it did for Cronkite.

From 1953 to 1957, Cronkite hosted You Are There, a CBS program that reenacted historical events in a news report format. His famous closing lines for the show were, "What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times ... and you were there." 

From 1971 to 1956, he hosted countless shows, such as the revived version of You Are There, The Twentieth Century, then It's News to Me, and Pick the Winner during the presidential elections of 19512 and 1956.

He also hosted The Morning Show, CBS' short-lived challenge to NBC's Today in 1954. 

While on-air, he interviewed guests and chatted about the News with a lion puppet named Charlemagne. Cronkite considered these conversations to be "one of the highlights" of the show. He continued, "A puppet can render opinions on people and things that a human commentator would not feel free to utter. I was, and I am proud of it."

On April 16, 1962, Cronkite succeeded Douglas Edwards as anchorman of CBS's nightly feature newscast, tentatively renamed Walter Cronkite with the News. The CBS Evening News was expanded from 15 to 30 minutes on September 2, 1963, officially making Cronkite the anchor of American network television's first nightly half-hour news program.

John F. Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963, emerged as a critical moment for Cronkite's career. Journalism students should research and learn from this heavy broadcast as it is a real example of reporting the truth under pressure, as the entire nation was hanging on every word of Cronkite's. Not only this, but Cronkite's coverage of the decade's most memorable events, including the Watergate scandal, the resignation of US President Richard M. Nixon, and the peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel. 

Cronkite's ratings dominated the charts and made CBS the most-watched television network during his Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 Moon missions coverage. Following in 1970, CBS Evening News finally dominated the American TV news viewing audience due to the retirement of NBC's Chet Hunt. Regardless of the new and well-respected replacement for him, Cronkite proved to be more popular and continued to be top-rated.

Another trademark of Cronkite's was how he ended the CBS Evening News with the phrase "...And that's the way it is," followed by the date. With the standards of objective journalism in mind, he would end the broadcast without this phrase when ending the broadcasting with his opinion or personal commentary. On Day 50 of the Iran hostage crisis, Cronkite added to the length of the hostages' captivity to the show's closing remarks to remind the audience of the unresolved situation. He stopped on Day 444, January 20, 1981.

While some Americans compared Cronkite to a father or an uncle figure, during an interview discussing his retirement, he declared himself more comparable to a "comfortable old shoe." His last day in the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News was on March 6, 1981. 

However, he occasionally broadcasted as a special correspondent for CBS, CNN, and NPR into the 21st century. One such occasion was the second space flight by John Glenn in 1998 due to Cronkite's personal choice of also covering Glenn's first flight in 1962. For many years, Walter Cronkite fittingly hosted the annual Kennedy Center Honors in tribute to his famous Kenedy assassination broadcast. 

Cronkite hosted the World War One Living History Project in 2006 while paying homage to his war correspondent years. This program honored America's veterans from the First World War.

The list containing Walter Cronkite's lack of retirement continues for miles. He contributed to the Huffington Post, advocated for the Alliance for Better Campaigns and Common Cause, spoke out against the War on Drugs, and even spoke out against Bush with the involvement of America in the Vietnam War. 

The cerebrovascular disease claimed Cronkite at his home in 2009 at the age of 92.

USA Today wrote, "Few TV figures have ever had as much power as Cronkite did at his height." 

Cronkite trained himself to speak at a rate of 124 words per minute (108 bpm is 120 wpm) in his newscasts to better communicate with his viewers so that they can clearly understand what he is reporting and digest the information. In contrast, the typical American will average 165 words per minute, while difficult-to-understand speed talkers communicate roughly 200 words per minute. This only goes to aid in elaboration on Walter Cronkite's love for journalism and his more prominent passion for the truth.