Key figures: Walter Cronkite, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Dan Rather (successor), Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton (eulogizers)
Summary
Walter Leland Cronkite Jr., the legendary broadcast journalist and long-time anchor of the CBS Evening News, died on July 17, 2009, at his home in New York City at age 92 from cerebrovascular disease. During his tenure as the evening-news anchor from 1962 to 1981 — nearly two decades — Cronkite became the public face of American television journalism and was frequently cited in opinion polling as “the most trusted man in America.” He covered the nation’s and the world’s most consequential events of the 1960s and 1970s, from President Kennedy’s assassination to the moon landings to the unfolding Watergate scandal, his calm and authoritative voice lending gravitas to moments of national crisis and historic achievement.
Cronkite was born on November 4, 1916, in St. Joseph, Missouri, and grew up in Kansas City. He studied journalism at the University of Texas and began his career as a print reporter and radio announcer for the United Press in the 1930s. During World War II, he served as a European war correspondent, covering major theaters and battles. After the war, he transitioned to television news in its infancy, reporting for CBS from 1950 onward and anchoring various CBS News programs before becoming the anchor of the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in April 1962 — a position he held with remarkable consistency for nineteen years.
The Signature Broadcast Style
Cronkite’s on-air persona was defined by his measured delivery, his clear enunciation, and his famous closing phrase: “And that’s the way it is” — spoken each evening with a slight pause before his signature, which marked the end of each broadcast. The format of reading news at an anchor desk became standardized during his era, and many analysts credited Cronkite’s steady presence with stabilizing public confidence during turbulent times. His coverage of the Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963, in which he reported the president’s death with controlled emotion, became an iconic moment in television history. At 2:38 PM Eastern Time that day, Cronkite — on-air without a jacket, visibly struggling to maintain composure — announced: “From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official: President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time — 2 o’clock Eastern Standard Time — some 38 minutes ago.” He briefly removed his glasses and paused before continuing. The broadcast reached an estimated 40 million viewers and has been cited in journalism studies as a defining demonstration of broadcast restraint under pressure.
During the 1960s, Cronkite traveled extensively to cover major news stories in person — a practice less common among broadcast anchors of later eras. He anchored coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969, his enthusiasm evident as he narrated the lunar descent; his on-camera exclamations (“Oh boy!”) during the lunar touchdown broke with his normally reserved style and became iconic. At its peak in the mid-1970s, the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite was the most-watched news broadcast in America, reaching approximately 20–22 million viewers nightly, a figure that dwarfed the combined audiences of competitors ABC and NBC in that era.
The Vietnam Editorial (February 1968)
On February 27, 1968, Cronkite broadcast a special report titled Report from Vietnam: Who, What, When, Where, Why?, one of the most consequential editorial acts in American broadcast history. Returning from a two-week personal reporting trip to Vietnam following the Tet Offensive — a series of surprise attacks by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched January 30, 1968 — Cronkite broke from his customary objectivity to offer his personal assessment. He concluded the broadcast by stating: “It seems now more certain than ever, that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.” He called for negotiated peace, characterizing the escalation strategy as a “cosmic mistake.” The editorial aired on the same CBS timeslot as the evening news; an estimated 9 million viewers saw it live.
The episode became central to the mythology of broadcast journalism’s political influence. President Johnson’s reported response — “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America” — was not recorded contemporaneously and historians have debated whether he said it exactly those words, but Johnson announced on March 31, 1968 — roughly a month after the editorial — that he would not seek re-election. The causal chain between Cronkite’s broadcast and Johnson’s decision remains historically contested, but the episode is consistently cited in accounts of the relationship between media and presidential power. The 2009 commemoration of Cronkite’s death renewed debate over whether any individual broadcaster in the fragmented media landscape of the 21st century could again command equivalent influence. The contrast was acute: whereas Cronkite’s 1968 editorial reached a majority of evening news viewers in a three-network era, the Michael Jackson memorial service earlier that same July 2009 had illustrated how profoundly the media landscape had fractured — broadcast, cable, and online streams all competed for a fragmented audience.
Awards and Recognitions
Over his career Cronkite accumulated an extensive list of honors: four Dupont-Columbia University Awards, three Peabody Awards, an Emmy Award for lifetime achievement (1981), the George Polk Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by President Jimmy Carter in 1981. He was the first journalist inducted into the Television Hall of Fame (1986). In 1998, Time magazine included him on its list of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. His syndicated documentary series Walter Cronkite’s Universe (1980–82) and his public television work in later years (including the documentary series Cronkite Remembers, 1997) demonstrated his continued productivity in retirement.
Later Years and Honors
Cronkite retired as the CBS Evening News anchor in March 1981 and was succeeded by Dan Rather. He remained active in broadcasting and public life for decades afterward, hosting documentary specials, teaching, and serving as a public voice on journalism and democracy. In his later years, he became an elder statesman of journalism, frequently consulted as a symbol of broadcast news integrity.
His death on July 17, 2009, prompted an outpouring of tributes from journalists, politicians, and the public. A memorial service was held at Lincoln Center on September 9, 2009, where President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton eulogized him, underscoring his status as a figure of national importance transcending partisan politics. Cronkite was survived by his wife Betsy Maxwell (married 1940), and their three children.
Significance
Walter Cronkite’s death marked the passing of a towering figure in American journalism and broadcasting — the last of the “anchor generation” that had defined network evening news as the nation’s primary source of trusted information. His career spanned from radio’s golden age through television’s rise to dominance, and his retirement in 1981 coincided with the beginning of the decline of broadcast network news’s monopoly on mass audience attention. By 2009, cable news and internet journalism had fragmented the media landscape, and the role of the trusted evening-news anchor — once a position of almost unparalleled cultural authority — had diminished significantly.
Cronkite’s legacy encompassed both his specific reporting achievements and his symbolic embodiment of a journalism profession committed to factual accuracy, impartial presentation, and public service. His frequently quoted status as “the most trusted man in America” reflected not just his personal credibility but also the public’s trust in broadcast institutions themselves — a trust that eroded considerably after his era. The 2009 nostalgia for Cronkite that his death occasioned was intertwined with broader anxieties about the fragmentation of media, the politicization of news, and the loss of a shared, authoritative information source in American life. Cronkite’s death fell in the same summer as other prominent figures of his generation: Senator Ted Kennedy died on August 25, 2009, prompting similar national reflections on a passing era of American public life. The concentrated losses of July–August 2009 — from entertainer Michael Jackson in June to Cronkite and then Kennedy — made the summer of 2009 an unusually intense season of national mourning and retrospection.
Sources
- Walter Cronkite — Wikipedia
- Walter Cronkite, Anchorman for Decades, Dies at 92 — New York Times Obituary
- CBS Evening News — Wikipedia
- Apollo 11 Moon Landing Coverage — NASA History