Random acts of writing: Cronkite legacy one to remember

By Craig Carter
Saturday, July 25, 2009 11:25 PM PDT

He never would have made it in the broadcast news biz these days. He didn’t have perfect hair and teeth, his delivery was too deadpan and slow and, most importantly, he didn’t much care for celebrity gossip or what the latest slimy sports figure may or may not have done.

I know one thing for certain, though: He was a real inspiration to me. He actually made me believe journalism was, and is, a noble profession.

His name, in case you haven’t already guessed, was Walter Cronkite. The man we simply knew as “the most trusted man in America.” Do you think they’ll ever say that about Brian Williams, Katy Couric or Peter Jennings? Do you think anyone would dare say that about Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity? Not with a straight face, that’s for sure. (I exclude myself from the previous pronouncement because, let’s face it, I’m the writer of the piece. But I’m sure there’d be more than a little tittering if someone said I was the most trusted man on my block, much less the most trusted man in the whole country.)

At any rate, if you look up the word “integrity” in the dictionary, there’s a picture of Walter Cronkite. Or at least there should be. Sure, there were a few presidents that didn’t much care for him and more than a few lesser politicians that had nothing but contempt for him, and, of course, Archie Bunker blew raspberries at him, but that’s what happens when you report the news and only the news. The truth hurts, and hurt feelings often get angry, don’t they?

There are so many memories I have of Cronkite. I remember a chilly November afternoon when the nuns ushered us all into the school auditorium to watch the most trusted man in America tell us about the assassination of the president. I remember him reporting from Hue City, Vietnam, in February of 1968, and how the country went into full out argument mode when he said, from that point, the war was unwinnable. I remember him breaking down in tears of unfettered joy the night Neil and Buzz landed on the moon.

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Mostly, I remember being a college freshman and trusting only Walter Cronkite to report the latest shenanigans of a president that was corrupt beyond imagination. I’d be willing to bet Cronkite was at the top of Richard Nixon’s enemies list, and, as a young journalism student, I desperately wanted to be on that list as well.

Yes sir, when Cronkite was at CBS News, there was Cronkite and those other two lesser broadcasts. Cable news was just a wild idea racing around Ted Turner’s insane, pointed little head, and “entertainment news” was limited to pulpy tabloid magazines they sold at the counter of the grocery store.

It was a completely different time. Cronkite just reported what was going on. He didn’t sink into conjecture or prattle on and on about what the president should or shouldn’t have done. He respected his audience enough to trust we really didn’t need hours of cable news analysis, provided the news was reported correctly. And, in the end, the audience respected him right back.

Sometimes when I’m particularly bored (which happens a lot more often than I like to admit), I like to fantasize about how Cronkite would have covered the arrest of Paris Hilton, the deaths of Anna Nicole Smith and Michael Jackson or the O.J. trial.

I have my suspicions, on the second or third day of endless O.J. nonsense, Cronkite would have thrown his hands in the air and said, “If this is what passes for the news now, you can have it.” And he would have gone sailing.

Simply, he had a passion for journalism and unequalled integrity. Two things that are sorely lacking today.

 And that’s the way it is, or was.

Craig Carter, an Ontario resident, can be contacted at Craig Carter, Argus Observer Newsroom; 1160 S.W. Fourth St., Ontario, OR 97914