Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr.was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years. During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll. He reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombings in World War II; the Nuremberg trials; combat in the Vietnam War; the Dawson's Field hijackings; Watergate; the Iran Hostage...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNews Anchor
Date of Birth4 November 1916
CitySaint Joseph, MO
CountryUnited States of America
As anchorman of the CBS Evening News, I signed off my nightly broadcasts for nearly two decades with a simple statement: "And that's the way it is." To me, that encapsulates the newsman's highest ideal: to report the facts as he sees them, without regard for the consequences or controversy that may ensue.
It seems to me that instead of cutting taxes, we ought to be increasing the taxes to pay off the deficit, rather than let that thing build up to the point where our grandchildren's grandchildren are going to be paying for our period of time and our years at the helm.
The profession of journalism ought to be about telling people what they need to know - not what they want to know.
In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story.
Our job is only to hold up the mirror - to tell and show the public what has happened.
We're an ignorant nation right now. We're not really capable, I do not think, the majority of our people, of making the decisions that have to be made at election time and particularly in the selection of their legislatures and their Congress and the presidency, of course. I don't think we're bright enough to do the job that would preserve our democracy, our republic. I think we're in serious danger.
The debates are part of the unconscionable fraud that our political campaigns have become a format that defies meaningful discourse. They should be charged with sabotaging the electoral process.
If that is what makes us liberals, so be it, just as long as in reporting the news we adhere to the first ideals of good journalism -- that news reports must be fair, accurate and unbiased.
There is no such thing as a little freedom. Either you are all free, or you are not free.
I don't think those things live forever with the public. They're more likely to live with us journalists than the public itself.
To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past,
To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past,
Everybody knows that there's a liberal, that there's a heavy liberal persuasion among correspondents.
I am not a contemplative type, basically. I am much more of an action person and, as a consequence, I look forward to today and tomorrow and what's breaking.