American icon Walter Cronkite passed away Friday night at the age of 92 in New York. The legendary journalist spent 19 years at the CBS Evening News anchor desk, earning him the moniker “the most trusted man in America,” and forever changing the way news would be broadcast on television.
But long before appearing in the living rooms of America each night, Cronkite was working for newspapers and small radio stations in the Midwest, near his birthplace of St. Joseph, Missouri.
In 1939, he joined United Press International (UPI) as a news editor. But after the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, he was sent to Europe as a war correspondent.
Cronkite was alongside soldiers for many major events during the war. He went ashore on D-Day, parachuted with the 101st Airborne, and flew in a bombing mission over Germany.
He covered the Nuremberg trials for Nazi war criminals for UPI in 1945, and opened up its first post-war bureau in Moscow. Cronkite caught the eye of CBS vice-president Edward R. Murrow in 1950, and he was brought on to the network’s Washington affiliate.
He later moved on to the national network, where over the next decade he would host such programs as You Are There, The Morning Show and The Twentieth Century.
He was sent to Chicago by CBS in 1952 to cover the Democratic National Convention, marking the first nationally televised convention coverage. The term “anchor” was coined to describe his role at the convention, which he hosted again in 1956 and 1960.
Two years later, he moved into the position he would hold for the next 19 years: anchorman of the CBS Evening News. Less than a year after he took over the position from Douglas Edwards, the program was extended from 15 minutes to 30.
Cronkite’s first 30-minute newscast featured an exclusive interview with President John F. Kennedy, barely two months before the president’s assassination. Cronkite famously choked up and came close to losing his composure while reporting the event on November 22, 1963.
In 1964, Cronkite was replaced at the anchor desk for the Democratic National Convention. He considered leaving CBS, but letters poured in from members of the public who were upset by the change, and Cronkite was put back on the desk for the Republican convention that year.
The CBS Evening News took the top spot in television ratings in 1967, and remained there until Cronkite left the show. During his time at the anchor desk, he reported on such historic events as the Cuban missile crisis, the Apollo moon landing and the war in Vietnam.
After travelling to Vietnam to cover the war in 1968 and returning to the CBS anchor desk, Cronkite stated on the air that the conflict could only end in a “stalemate,” prompting President Lyndon Johnson to reportedly say to his staff: “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”
Many observers believe that Cronkite’s reporting was a major factor in Johnson’s decision not to run for president in 1968.
A 1973 polled named Cronkite the “most trusted man in America.” For CBS, he would report on the Watergate scandal, the resignation of Richard Nixon and almost every manned Apollo spaceflight from 1961 to 1981.
He signed off from each newscast with the phrase “And that’s the way it is.”
After 19 years as the anchor of the CBS Evening News, he retired in 1981. That year, President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
After his retirement, Cronkite hosted several documentaries for various cable television networks and served as a special correspondent for CBS. He published his autobiography, A Reporter’s Life, in 1996.
Global National’s Kevin Newman met Cronkite several times, and said that, “Above all else he remained a reporter with a twinkle in his eye whenever a good story was being told.”
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