A World Without Cronkite
Some might ask the obvious: Why is Justin Evans writing about the passage of Walter Cronkite? Well, it's a good question, and I think it's within my ability to answer within a few paragraphs, so please be patient.
It's true that I don't share the iconic memories of Walter Cronkite which many Americans do. My father wasn't even born when Cronkite reported on D-Day or interviewed Eisenhower. I wasn't alive when Cronkite announced the death of President Kennedy. I was not yet conceived when he stepped away from a reporter' objectivity and commented on on the state of affairs in Vietnam. As for the moon landing, I was only five days old when man landed on the moon and Cronkite was there, with the rest of the world, excited and seemingly eternally optimistic.
However, for the first eleven years of my life, it was from Walter Cronkite that I learned what the news was always meant to be. My grandfather watched the CBS News, and I really don't think there were many people who did not. To tell you the truth, I can't even tell you who the competing anchors were at that time. Walter Cronkite simply was the national news, and I can say that without the slightest implication of hyperbole. I don't just say "was" because it is quite obvious that an era has just passed with his death, but to highlight that since Cronkite's retirement there has a been a marked, steady decline in the quality of news reporting and journalism. Dan Rather, who replaced Cronkite as anchor certainly had big shoes to fill, but by way of lawsuits and temper tantrums he made it clear he was not up to the challenge of maintaining integrity. Rather simply squandered what talent he had on petty issues. It is unfortunate that Bob Shieffer came to the job too late to stem the tide of this decline.
The era of Past Cronkite (P.C.) has become too entrenched in glib pop commercialism and sensationalism. Americans, since 1981, have been woefully unequal to the task of fighting our more base instincts and wanton desire to seek the lowest common level among us. The proliferation of talking heads on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX is not to be blamed on cable making media so accessible and much less pluralism of American ideologies. It is here because we have lacked a single unified conscience to oppose their kind. And while I side with some of these voices who use integrity, it is clear too many have none, and they exist only because there is nobody like Walter Cronkite to shame them back into the dark corners of the radical fringe elements of our political spectrum.
I was watching when Walter Cronkite signed off from the CBS News for the last time, and I was always eager to see some glimpse of a return, or as he would say, continuation of his career. As we grow older, it is inevitable that we lose those icons we have created for ourselves from the people we find important, but some losses are greater than others. Some losses reach out further than others. Some we will carry with us further down the road.
One can only wonder what comes next.



