In Appreciation: Walter Cronkite & A Personal Share
By Roberta Rosenberg on Jul 18, 2009 in In Appreciation
You have or will read a great deal about Walter Cronkite today.
How, for a generation, he was the most trusted man in America. How when he concluded each news broadcast with “And that’s the way it is …”, and how you believed it because our “Uncle Walter” told it to us like it was. Old or young, liberal or conservative, rich or poor, colored white or otherwise, unless you were a complete whack-job, you knew that Walter Cronkite was THE broadcast journalism god.
I was a broadcast journalism major at the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University in 1974-75. Newhouse was then and still is considered one of the best J-schools in the country. In the time of Woodward and Bernstein and the stirrings of Watergate, there was a big slice of Babyboomer-dom who aspired to what we believed then – and I still do now – that journalism a deeply noble, essential profession that forces honesty and transparency on unwilling companies and governments.
The important role of gadfly bloggers, Twitterers and citizen journalists aside – you just don’t have a clue as to how much we admired, trusted and loved this man.
So here’s my personal story. During one semester of my SU tenure, I was dating the main TV weather guy, Dave Eiser, at WHEN-TV, the local CBS-affiliate. (Sidenote: Al Roker was the weekend weather guy at this station at this time.) At some point, Dave calls me screaming with excitement that Walter Cronkite is going to do a ‘bumper’ – local news intro – to his station and WALTER CRONKITE IS GOING TO SAY MY NAME!
We waited for a week or two until the day came. Dave was still wrapping up things at the station, but I was at his home with his two roomies (one of whom became President of UPI and now works at Bloomberg) waiting for the bumper.
And then it came. There was Walter, serious but with a smile, reminding viewers to watch the best news team in Syracuse (I don’t remember the names of the main anchors or sports guy) and then … and then … “and weather with Dave Eiser.”
Much happy screaming ensued. Dave called immediately. “Did you hear, did you hear? HE SAID MY NAME!”
I haven’t been in touch with Dave for 30 years, but I’m willing to bet that if I could ask him about one of the best days of his life, career or otherwise, he’d say – “The day Walter Cronkite said my name on TV.”
Thank you for everything, Walter. It was good to believe in someone at a time you couldn’t believe in anything.
Kerrie | Jul 18, 2009 | Reply
That’s an excellent story. Walter Cronkite just always seemed so darn nice and made us feel he really cared about the country, the world, humanity…and he did.
As a former member of the media, it saddens me that the amount of coverage on Walter Cronkite’s death has been miniscule compared to Michael Jackson’s. I know MJ was a musical icon and everything, and he certainly deserves some extra coverage (journalistically speaking), but it floors me that the media has hardly payed tribute to one of their own. Not just their own, but one of the greatest the industry has ever had.
I just don’t get it.
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Roberta Rosenberg | Jul 19, 2009 | Reply
Kerrie – thanks for your comment. I couldn’t agree more about MJ vs Cronkite. Maybe it’s a generational thing. Maybe it’s because Cronkite couldn’t dance worth a lick or carry a note in a bag.