"...A Few Words On Walter..."

As is usually the case when a celebrity dies, the words will be flowing like wine for awhile.

I’m guessing that since Walter Cronkite lived to be 92, died peacefully in his sleep and was neither addicted to prescription medications or suspected of sleeping with little boys, the aforementioned “awhile” will be a day or two.

Unless it turns out that he had a girlfriend hidden in Argentina.

I doubt it.

In that day or two, though, a career of seventy plus years will be dissected, analyzed, interpreted and explained by both those who knew him and those who simply cant resist dissecting, analyzing, interpreting and explaining however and whenever the opportunity arises.

I’m certainly not the former.

And have no desire to be the latter.

What I would offer is, simply, this…

The “end of an era” that the more poetic types will refer to in connection with Cronkite’s passing is, I think, the passing of someone who treated the traditions of journalism with respect and was first, foremost and always more committed to the integrity of the information and the validity of the reporting than whatever celebrity value may have resulted from being that reporter.

The reason that Walter Cronkite was a news business superstar is that he couldn’t have cared less about being a star.

And “ the most trusted man in America” was trusted because his agenda was obvious to one and all.

He had no agenda.

Except to keep us informed to the best of his considerable abilities.

We admired him because he spent his working life shining a light on things he believed we needed and/or deserved to know, instead of trying to shine a bit of that light on himself.

The smartly tailored, perfectly coiffed “news readers” of this era, who spend as much time on the phone with their agents as they do with their sources, should take a refresher course in the fundamentals of journalism.

Starting with the Book Of Walter.

Maybe that’s not the way it is.

But that’s the way it should be.