Walter Cronkite

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Emmys Pick 10 Biggest Moments in TV History

From Beatles and MLK Jr., all the way through 9/11 coverage, these moments made an impression

(Newser) - The Emmys take place Monday, and it's the awards ceremony's 75th anniversary of celebrating the best on the boob tube. To honor that milestone, the Television Academy assembled members and academics who sifted through more than seven decades of TV gold, including news reports, sitcoms, dramas, variety shows,...

New Bio: Cronkite Was on the Take

He accepted scads of free Pan Am trips, says Brinkley book

(Newser) - It seems our apparently squeaky-clean fatherly news king Walter Cronkite was not above accepting major freebies from none other than Pan Am. That's the dirt from a new biography on Cronkite, that claims he cut a deal in the 1970s with the airline to fly him, his family and...

Is Jon Stewart the New Edward R. Murrow?
Is Jon Stewart the New
Edward R. Murrow?
analysis

Is Jon Stewart the New Edward R. Murrow?

Role in 9/11 health bill points to journalism's greats

(Newser) - By taking up a cause—the 9/11 health bill—and getting quick results, Jon Stewart is following in the footsteps of news greats and "advocacy journalists" Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, professor of television Robert Thompson tells the New York Times . Murrow helped shift public opinion on the...

Olbermann Rips Koppel as 'False Priest of Objectivity'

Journalists have always exercised judgment about stories, he argues

(Newser) - A deadly serious Keith Olbermann slammed critic Ted Koppel yesterday, charging that no journalist is truly unbiased and lashing the former Nightline host as a "false priest worshiping before the false god of utter objectivity." Even journalistic lions like Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow exercised "significant"...

Morgan Freeman Becomes Voice of CBS News

'It was the right time' to replace Walter Cronkite: network

(Newser) - Nearly six months after Walter Cronkite's death, his voice is leaving the CBS Evening News. His introduction of anchor Katie Couric has been replaced by a voiceover featuring actor Morgan Freeman. The legendary CBS News anchor recorded the introduction, played at the beginning of most newscasts, when Couric started at...

New Safires and Cronkites Needed, Not Ranters: Noonan

Time for the next generation of media elders to put the national debate on an even keel

(Newser) - Elder statesmen of the media like Walter Cronkite and William Safire are dropping at an alarming rate, and their replacements need to step up, writes Peggy Noonan. Ranters on the right and the left—like MSNBC's Ed Schultz, who says Republicans "want to see you dead"—are proliferating,...

Cronkite Will Leaves Gal Pal High and Dry

Money goes to kids, CBS staff; daughter: 'it was about my mother'

(Newser) - Walter Cronkite left nada in his will for his opera star girlfriend, reports the New York Post. The 2005 document, written before he and singer Joanna Simon became attached at the hip, divides Cronkite's estate among his three kids and his CBS staff. The newsman’s daughter says Cronkite never...

60 Minutes Creator Don Hewitt, 86, Dies
 60 Minutes Creator 
 Don Hewitt, 86, Dies 
Obituary

60 Minutes Creator Don Hewitt, 86, Dies

TV legend directed Cronkite, Murrow in nearly 60 years at CBS

(Newser) - Don Hewitt, one of the pioneers of TV news, died today at 86 of pancreatic cancer, CBS reports. Hewitt all but invented television news over the course of his more than 60-year career, directing legends Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. He was behind the 1968 launch of 60 Minutes,...

Media Should Learn From Cronkite: Grow a Backbone

Today's press too cozy with Washington

(Newser) - It wasn’t Walter Cronkite’s “avuncular persona” or his reaction to the JFK assassination that made him “the most trusted man in America,” Frank Rich writes in the New York Times—it was his willingness to challenge the halls of power. That’s become increasingly rare...

Cronkite as VP? It Nearly Happened

(Newser) - A lot of things would have been better in America if Walter Cronkite had been elected vice president in 1972, writes Frank Mankiewicz in the Washington Post, and it could have happened. Mankiewicz was the political director for George McGovern’s campaign, and, “armed with a poll showing Walter...

Andy Rooney at Cronkite Funeral: 'I Can't Get Over It'

Memorial service honors legendary TV news anchor

(Newser) - Family and friends of Walter Cronkite remembered the venerable television news anchor today at a memorial at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Manhattan, CBS News reports. Speakers at the service remembered Cronkite’s sense of humor, his love of sailing, and the strong emotions that lay beneath his calm, collected...

Poll: Stewart the New Cronkite
 Poll: Stewart the New Cronkite 

Poll: Stewart the New Cronkite

(Newser) - In an absurd world, maybe the only people we can trust are the comedians. A Time.com poll asked readers who the most trusted newscaster in America is, now that Walter Cronkite has passed on. The overwhelming response? Jon Stewart. The Daily Show maestro took 44% of the 9,409...

Who We Trust Post-Cronkite
 Who We Trust 
 Post-Cronkite 

Who We Trust Post-Cronkite

From Cooper to Oprah, people weigh in

(Newser) - After the passing of Walter Cronkite, the Washington Post wondered who could compare to his level of trustworthiness. Below are a few of the responses they got from a variety of sources:
  • Anderson Cooper, “because he always has that slight bit of cynicism when it’s deserved,” says
...

CBS: Cronkite Will Keep Introducing Evening News

Late newscaster's voice was to be dropped from broadcast

(Newser) - The voice of the late Walter Cronkite will continue to introduce the CBS Evening News, the New York Times reports. The network’s decision marks a reversal after talks with Cronkite family members, who were “very clear that if we continued to use his voice, they would consider it...

Cronkite Shook Our Faith in American Institutions

The most trusted man in America often undermined the system

(Newser) - Armed with a “splendid poker face and a voice that incarnated authority,” Walter Cronkite symbolized the very credibility of American institutions that his reporting came to undermine, Todd Gitlin writes in the New Republic. Whether it was the Pentagon or the president of the United States, Cronkite broke...

Cronkite: A Cool Drummer, Too

(Newser) - Yeah, he was the most trusted man in America and all that, but Boing Boing points out a different reason we're going to miss Walter Cronkite: The man had rhythm. "True fact, Walter Cronkite was a hot drummer," the site quotes John Perry Barlow, the Grateful Dead lyricist,...

Cronkite 'Spoke for the Nation'
 Cronkite 'Spoke for the Nation' 
tributes

Cronkite 'Spoke for the Nation'

(Newser) - The tributes are pouring in for Walter Cronkite:
  • Howard Kurtz, Washington Post: His "passing, in the end, is the passing of an era, an era of black-and-white television, of mass audiences, of a slower time when the country waited for the headlines at 6:30 in the evening. No
...

Iconic Newsman Walter Cronkite Dead at 92

(Newser) - Walter Cronkite, the CBS anchorman who revolutionized television news for a generation, died today at age 92, CBS News reports. He had suffered a long illness and was at home in New York with his family. Cronkite helmed the CBS Evening News throughout the 1960s and '70s, guiding America through...

Cronkite 'Gravely Ill'
 Cronkite 'Gravely Ill' 

Cronkite 'Gravely Ill'

(Newser) - Walter Cronkite, the legendary CBS News anchor and reporter, is “gravely ill,” sources tell Mediabistro columnist Gail Shister. The network began updating its obituary package for the 92-year-old last week, one added. Newsday’s Verne Gay writes that he, too, has heard the rumors: “Walter could be...

Vietnam Stays With McCain
 Vietnam Stays With McCain 

Vietnam Stays With McCain

Philosophy rooted in visits continues to influence candidate

(Newser) - After 5 years as a POW, John McCain returned to Vietnam in 1974 and 1985, trips that inextricably linked him with the war in American minds. They also helped color the way he thinks about foreign policy and helped him learn to make amends with onetime enemies when it meant...

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