WALTER CRONKITEby Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune, July 17, 2009:
He was our guide to the news during one of this nation's most eventful periods, so it was almost inevitable Walter Cronkite's death would coincide with the anniversary of some momentous occasion or another to be remembered through the prism he provided.That it was the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon mission seemed particularly appropriate.There is much for which to eulogize Cronkite, who died Friday at age 92. The man so defined the job of anchorman as reporter rather than simply reader that it's said anchormen were called Cronkiters in Holland and Kronkiters in Sweden. It matters not that NBC's "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" had more viewers in his early years on the " CBS Evening News."Among clips committed to collective memory are: Cronkite's report that President John Kennedy was dead; his 1968 analysis that the United States should seek a negotiated peace in Vietnam; his agenda-setting decision to devote 14 minutes to the growing Watergate scandal one autumn evening in '72, followed four nights later by an eight-minute report; his nightly countdown for U.S. hostages in Iran.
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