Walter Cronkite reported gravely ill at 92
For those of a certain age, this will be news. For others, not so much. I think you had to be there at the time to get it, so to speak.
From TV Newser at Mediabistro:
TVNewser has learned legendary CBS newsman Walter Cronkite, 92, who once held the title of “Most Trusted Man in America,” is gravely ill, according to multiple CBS News sources. The network began updating his obituary more than a week ago, a source adds. CBS News executive Linda Mason, designated to speak on Cronkite’s behalf, had no comment.”
Today was the first time I ever saw this clip. As a piece of history, an artifact of its time and as testament to “Uncle Walter,” it’s pretty moving.
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131 comments Add your comment
I Report :-) You Whine :-(
June 19th, 2009
8:02 am
Our prayers are with him.
I Report :-) You Whine :-(
June 19th, 2009
8:04 am
At issue was $5 billion tucked away in the bill (War Supplemental) to secure a $108 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan. Republicans blasted it as a “global bailout” and pointed out that the $108 billion IMF package is actually larger than the nearly $80 billion going to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.-AmSpec
Is there no end to democrat malfeasance?
eewww
I Report :-) You Whine :-(
June 19th, 2009
8:07 am
Reagan went back to writing what was supposed to be a Christmas message, deciding to use the occasion to send another message altogether to the Soviets, condemning them outright for their conduct in Poland: “We can’t let this revolution against Communism fail without offering a hand,” he wrote that day in his diary. “We may never have an opportunity like this in our lifetime.”-AmSpec
To this day Poland remains a country where it’s people live free from tyranny.
Iran isn’t.
A little courage goes a long way.
Normal
June 19th, 2009
8:19 am
I saw the broadcast when he came back from Viet Nam and said we were losing the war. I shivered. And the next day I got my draft notice…
—————
Mr. Cronkite was the most trusted face in T.V. News of his day…Too bad the “Fox New’s” of today have tarnished that. When will we have trustworthy newscasters of that stature again? Todays newsmen have a lot to live up to.
———————–
Normal said:
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with Caesar … The noble WHINER
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it …
Here, under leave of WHINER and the rest,
(For WHINER is an honourable man;
So are they all (NEO CONS); all honourable men)
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral …
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But WHINER says he was ambitious;
And WHINER is an honourable man….
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet WHINER says he was ambitious;
And WHINER is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet WHINER says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what WHINER spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
————-
…JUst sayin’
ByteMe
June 19th, 2009
8:23 am
I am of that certain age where Huntley, Brinkley, Cronkite, and Reasoner were the voices of “truth” and miss that seriousness when “news” wasn’t controlled by the entertainment divisions.
clyde
June 19th, 2009
8:25 am
You had to be there and I was there.Thank you,Walter Cronkite.
Pennsylvanian
June 19th, 2009
8:26 am
I remember this well. Like 9/11/2001, etched in permanent memory. I was in 5th grade. The principal had moved a TV into the hall, and all were watching. Students were confused, as most of us had never heard the word ‘assassinated’ before and never seen teachers weeping. Later in the 60’s Walter Cronkite brought a war to us in a way never before seen.
God be with you, Walter.
DB, Gwinnettian
June 19th, 2009
8:27 am
If he is to pass, here’s hoping his passage beyond this mortal coil is peaceful.
(Oh, and Jay, I think you wanted this link, not the generic homepage to Newser.)
Normal
June 19th, 2009
8:28 am
ByteMe, Me too…Iremember Dad calling us in to watch the news back then as a family meeting…Mom always compared it to the Fireside Chats that FDR did. Think we will ever have those days again?
Mrs. Godzilla
June 19th, 2009
8:31 am
I saw this live as well…..I didn’t understand it’s full import then.
I remember the tears on my Pop’s face.
Thank you Mr. Cronkite.
USinUK
June 19th, 2009
8:32 am
Byte Me and Normal –
I don’t worry about the Entertainment division … I worry about the corporate parents … THEY’RE the ones who make the important decisions (i.e., BUDGET)
mike
June 19th, 2009
8:35 am
Best wishes for Walter Cronkite. We could use more like him.
Joe Matarotz
June 19th, 2009
8:37 am
That harks back to a time when you could trust the reporters to tell it like it was, not how they wanted it to be.
mike
June 19th, 2009
8:38 am
Remember Jay’s post about the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the requisite sneering about “deniers”?
Looks like the report is seriously flawed:
The new federal report on climate change gets a withering critique from Roger Pielke Jr., who says that it misrepresents his own research and that it wrongly concludes that climate change is already responsible for an increase in damages from natural disasters. Dr. Pielke, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, asks:
[Why] is a report characterized by [White House] Science Advisor John Holdren as being the “most up-to-date, authoritative, and comprehensive” analysis relying on a secondary, non-peer source citing another non-peer reviewed source from 2000 to support a claim that a large amount of uncited and more recent peer-reviewed literature says the opposite about?
You can check out Dr. Pielke’s blog for a detailed rebuttal of how the report presents science in his area of expertise, the study of trends in natural disasters and their relation to climate change. While the new federal report (prepared by 13 agencies and the White House) paints a dire picture of climate change’s impacts, Dr. Pielke says that the authors of this new report, like those of previous reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Stern Review, cherrypick weak evidence that fits their own policy preferences. He faults all these reports for all relying on “non-peer reviewed, unsupportable studies rather than the relevant peer-reviewed literature” and for “featuring non-peer-reviewed work conducted by the authors.”
Dr. Pielke contrasts these reports’ conclusions about trends in natural disasters with the some quite different findings last year by the federal Climate Change Science Program. Dr. Pielke summarizes some of its less sensational conclusions:
1. Over the long-term, U.S. hurricane landfalls have been declining.
2. Nationwide there have been no long-term increases in drought.
3. Despite increases in some measures of precipitation . . . there have not been corresponding increases in peak streamflows (high flows above 90th percentile).
4. There have been no observed changes in the occurrence of tornadoes or thunderstorms
5. There have been no long-term increases in strong East Coast winter storms (ECWS), called Nor’easters.
6. There are no long-term trends in either heat waves or cold spells, though there are trends within shorter time periods in the overall record.
Do those benign trends seem surprising to you? What do you think of Dr. Pielke’s arguments? Here’s his overall conclusion about the dangers of hyping the link between natural disasters and climate change: “Until the climate science community cleans up its act on this subject it will continue to give legitimate opportunities for opponents to action to criticize the climate science community.”
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/us-climate-report-assailed/?partner=rss&emc=rss
Normal
June 19th, 2009
8:40 am
USinUK, True enough, but it should not be that way. If we were the “Free” society that the Conservative type jaw about, we would have a free press, unfetered by any restraints, instead of right wingers like Murdoch buying them up. How free is that, y’all…Just askin’
——————
USinUK, It’s been a really long time since I was in the UK, but tell me, do they still have those fish and chip barrows? I remember them with much pleasure. All wrapped up in the London Times…And I still have hopes of walking the Decks of HMS Victory some day.
Copyleft
June 19th, 2009
8:42 am
Man, the wingnuts can’t stop pounding away at their hopeless posting of irrelevancies even for a SECOND, can they?
It’s futile to wish for a “full and speedy recovery” for a 92-year old man, but I hope Mr. Cronkite is at peace and in no pain. A public servant of his caliber–a true journalist, rather than simply a stenographer-parrot–deserves no less.
Bosch
June 19th, 2009
8:42 am
Can anyone post the link to Jay’s piece up yonder? My Intertubes isn’t working too well today.
Said it before – one of the worse things to EVER happen to this country is 24/7 news. And I use the term “news” lightly. We don’t have news anymore it’s entertainment.
God speed Mr. Cronkite. You were the best that I can remember.
USinUK
June 19th, 2009
8:44 am
Hi Normal!
There are fish and chip shops everywhere, but they don’t wrap in newspaper anymore (now, it’s plain butcher’s paper) … YUM! When you were here, was the HMS Belfast anchored in the Thames?? that’s an impressive ship! Sadly, there was a horrible fire in the Cutty Sark, so it’ll be some time before that can be boarded again
mike
June 19th, 2009
8:44 am
Copyleft –
“Man, the wingnuts can’t stop pounding away at their hopeless posting of irrelevancies even for a SECOND, can they?”
Yes, because folks like you and getalife are always providing us with relevant and factual posts.
Spare us the ceaseless hypocrisy.
@@
June 19th, 2009
8:45 am
I was very young but my Dad watched him. The other two also…”Goodnight (?)”…”Goodnight (?)”
Very stoic and professional.
Dan RATHER worked with him????? Dan should’a paid closer attention.
A “good word” goes up for Mr. C.
Pennsylvanian
June 19th, 2009
8:46 am
Normal – The free press comment cuts both ways. Cox Communications, owners of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, bought out their local competition, then shut it down. There is a school now in the building that once housed a newspaper.
USinUK
June 19th, 2009
8:47 am
Bosch -
Happy Friday, Bosch!
“one of the worse things to EVER happen to this country is 24/7 news. And I use the term “news” lightly. We don’t have news anymore it’s entertainment.”
I think Uncle Ted was on to a good idea with CNN – I still believe in the value of the 24/7 news availability … that’s where I was for the election results, that’s where I was for 9/11, that’s where I was for Gulf War I. However, the problem is when major news ISN’T happening – they’re not deploying investigative reporters, they’re doing the “Missing White Woman” / “Runaway Bride” / “Britney Meltdown” rotation 24/7. THAT is a crime and a waste of resources.
Turd Ferguson
June 19th, 2009
8:47 am
Huntly/Brinkley…YES.
Cronkite…not so much so…nevertheless and should it come to pass…RIP Wally.
ByteMe
June 19th, 2009
8:48 am
Normal, no, I think the lid is off Pandora’s Box now and we can’t put everything back the way it was. Sensationalism rules the day. Everything that’s unimportant is “breaking news” in order to sell more perscription meds to the masses. If it’s a slow news day, news MUST be created to justify round-the-clock broadcasts.
I’d like to blame this all on Ted Turner, but I know that’s not true, because his original idea was on target, but taken and expanded in absurd ways by Time-Warner, GE, and Fox Corp.
Normal
June 19th, 2009
8:49 am
USinUK…It was 52 yeaes ago when I was there. Went with Dad on some Army business, we were stationed in Germany. I’m not even sure the
Victory was there, or I’m sure I would have insisted we see it. Dad was Army, so of course I just had to be Navy…
ByteMe
June 19th, 2009
8:49 am
@@, the quotes you seek are:
“Good Night, Chet”
“Good Night, David”
And now, “Good sailing and pleasant journey, Walter.”
USinUK
June 19th, 2009
8:49 am
“RIP Wally”
as the Python boys said … “he’s not dead, yet”
Normal
June 19th, 2009
8:52 am
Pennsylvanian What Local Paper, what school?
Bosch
June 19th, 2009
8:53 am
USinUK and ByteME,
I agree with you about how CNN used to be, but not now. They have “experts” come on and basically scream each other down to make their points, when there is really no point to be made.
I feel that the sensationalism (good word ByteME) and the talk radio morons have done so much damage to this country by making every one hyper partisan.
USinUK
June 19th, 2009
8:53 am
Normal –
wow – 52 years … you wouldn’t recognize the place, now … you should make a visit! (the dollar is around $1.65 right now – better than the $2 it was last year) … I love this place – you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting something historic (roman ruins, fire of London, Drake’s ship the Golden Hind, the Globe, the Tower) … even out in the burbs where we live, you can see where the roman road to Londinium went through (man, those guys built things to LAST) …
you really should come back
Bosch
June 19th, 2009
8:55 am
And OMG, the Georgia Theater is on fire. And apparently Luckovich is just as gravely concerned about our pandas as I am.
USinUK
June 19th, 2009
8:55 am
Bosch and Byteme –
“I feel that the sensationalism (good word ByteME) and the talk radio morons have done so much damage to this country by making every one hyper partisan.”
couldn’t agree more … at least when Buckley had his point/counterpoint roundtables, they actually let each other speak, they made salient points, they actually DISCUSSED the issues of the day rather than had a shouting match. (Jon Stewart had the right of it – those shows are ruining the country)
Bosch
June 19th, 2009
8:55 am
If I want to watch the “news” I watch BBC America.
md
June 19th, 2009
8:56 am
“Too bad the “Fox New’s” of today have tarnished that.”
” If we were the “Free” society that the Conservative type jaw about, we would have a free press, unfetered by any restraints, instead of right wingers like Murdoch buying them up.”
It aint “normal” to be so biased.
If Fox is the only skewed news source, you are looking at the world through some awful distorted glasses. They all have an agenda, one way or the other. And please, tell me GE doesn’t do the same as Murdoch. Try looking from the middle of the room vs from the corners.
Linville
June 19th, 2009
8:57 am
Borsch,
Completely agree on news. I saw Koppel speak a couple of years ago, he lamented the change. Interestingly, when Cronkite was the man news was not a profit item for the networks…they lost money. Then 20/20 came along and the networks figured out that news could pull good advertising revenue. The rest is history.
Obama is a nerd/Tom Petty is the coolest
June 19th, 2009
8:58 am
USinUK
ship! Sadly, there was a horrible fire in the Cutty Sark, so it’ll
There is a Cutty Sark? I have always wanted to see Nelsin’s ship. Is it there and avalaible for touring? What about the BASS brewery?
I went to London in the early 90’s to catch the KINKS. Sad to say, I don’t remember a thing. We were dependant on MAC flights and had very little time.
USinUK
June 19th, 2009
8:58 am
Bosch –
don’t watch them cover things like the election or the inauguration – they’re DREADFUL at it!!! (they talked over the Marine Corps Band – I mean!!! that’s just. not. right.)
but they do a great job at presenting balanced global news -
Normal
June 19th, 2009
9:00 am
MD…Good point. In my endeavors to see all sides, sometimes I box myself in…Thanks for “eyes opened”…Just sayin’
Doggone/GA
June 19th, 2009
9:01 am
“Then 20/20 came along and the networks figured out that news could pull good advertising revenue. The rest is history.”
Actually, it’s my understanding that it was Kennedy’s assassination that started the change to profit-making news shows. Up until that happened, no news show made a profit…they weren’t expected to. They were just an expense neccessary to maintain the networks license to broadcast.
But when Kennedy was assassinated, all three networks news shows made profits and once the networks realized they COULD, they made the corporate change to insist they SHOULD.
Pennsylvanian
June 19th, 2009
9:04 am
Normal – Gwinnett Daily News, Louise Radloff school off Shackelford Rd. Nice looking building seen on east side of I85, just south of Steve Reynolds.
Bosch
June 19th, 2009
9:04 am
I finally got the link to come up on my Intertubes. Wow. Wow. Pause for a moment…….
USinUK
June 19th, 2009
9:04 am
Obama/Petty –
“There is a Cutty Sark? I have always wanted to see Nelsin’s ship. Is it there and avalaible for touring? What about the BASS brewery?
I went to London in the early 90’s to catch the KINKS. Sad to say, I don’t remember a thing. We were dependant on MAC flights and had very little time.”
yes, there is a Cutty Sark moored in Greenwich. it was one of the great trade schooners that they used to use – and it was absolutely beautiful — (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/The_Cutty_Sark_2005-01-24.jpg)
The Victory is in Portsmouth in dry dock – I don’t know if you can actually go ON it, but I would assume so.
too bad you don’t remember the Kinks show – I’ll bet it kicked butt! one of my coworkers saw Ray Davies perform last year at Somerset house – said he’s still got it.
@@
June 19th, 2009
9:05 am
OUCH! this had to sting:
Khamenei singled out the U.S., mocking America’s concern for human rights issues in Iran, noting that secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s husband was president when federal forces stormed the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. Scores of people died after a fire ravaged the compound.
“Do you even believe in human rights?” he said, criticizing the U.S. for its involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its support for Israel.
“The followers of the Davidian sect were staging a sit-in protest in a house,” he said. “The authorities asked them to come out. The Davidians refused. More than 80 men, women and children were burned alive in this house.”
Can’t deny ^^^ that.
USinUK
June 19th, 2009
9:06 am
“I finally got the link to come up on my Intertubes. Wow. Wow. Pause for a moment…….”
and again I say … CURSE YOU FIREWALL!!!
ByteMe
June 19th, 2009
9:06 am
“60 Minutes” was there long before 20/20.
And I don’t think it was the “news can be profitable” mentality, but what happened after they discovered that 24-hour news could be profitable. So if one channel could be profitable, then two must be better! And then MORE… and then FOUR!! (if you don’t get the reference, you don’t have little kids)
Just how much news do they think we can consume??
Normal
June 19th, 2009
9:07 am
Pennsylvanian- Thanks, I know that place! I never knew it was a paper, wow…
USinUK
June 19th, 2009
9:08 am
@@ … yeah, there the Davidians were, minding their own business when suddenly, from out of nowhere, the gov’t stormed their compound???
please. there was a 51-day standoff – Koresh could have gotten the wimmen and children out at any time but chose not to.
I Report :-) You Whine :-(
June 19th, 2009
9:09 am
That harks back to a time when you could trust the reporters to tell it like it was, not how they wanted it to be.
Uh huh-
Mr. Tin further advised that General Vo Nguyen Giap (Commanding General of the North Vietnam Army) had advised him the 1968 Tet Offensive had been a defeat.
The military defeat of North Vietnam after the Tet Offensive of 1968 became a political victory for North Vietnam because of anti-war demonstrations and the sensationalism of the news media. The North Vietnamese interpreted the U.S. reaction to these events as the weakening of America’s resolve to win the war. The North Vietnamese believed that victory could be theirs, if they stayed their course.
Although most of the attacks were quickly defeated, in Hue and at the American provincial base at Khe Sahn Tet signalled the beginning of protracted battles. Yet there was no “general uprising” in South Vietnam. The “quick victory” had turned into a disastrous defeat and recriminations within the communist leadership soon followed. With the Viet Cong decimated, General Giap lost much of his authority, ultimately being retained merely in the figurehead role of Minister of Defence. Only much later would the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese realize what they had actually achieved.
AmVet
June 19th, 2009
9:09 am
As long as we are remembering JFK:
“What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label “Liberal?” If by “Liberal” they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer’s dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of “Liberal.” But if by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”
“For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man’s ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.”
“Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.”
“Our liberalism has its roots in our diverse origins. Most of us are descended from that segment of the American population which was once called an immigrant minority.”
“Some pundits are saying it’s 1928 all over again. I say it’s 1932 all over again. I say this is the great opportunity that we will have in our time to move our people and this country and the people of the free world beyond the new frontiers of the 1960s.”
Or the new frontiers of the 2000s.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it lib loathers. Your angry childish insults hold no sting and have no power…
Obama is a nerd/Tom Petty is the coolest
June 19th, 2009
9:10 am
@@
Khamenei singled out the U.S., mocking America’s concern for human rights issues in Iran, noting that secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s husband was president when federal forces stormed the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. Scores of people died after a fire ravaged the compound.
I heard that too. The silence from liberal and conservative news orginizations is deafening about that remark.