Cronkite Career Serves as Shining Example
Had “Fallback” Position When at Odds With CBS
Jul 24, 2009
Presidents sought his approval; when he toured Vietnam in the 1960s and came back home to suggest the war was unwinnable, it knocked the props out from under Lyndon Johnson. Viewers eager to know more about their country and their world turned to Walter Cronkite, and associated him with some of the historical events of their lives – the Kennedy assassination, the moon landing, the Bicentennial (“Up, up, up, everybody; it’s your birthday”). His status as “America’s most trusted newsman” was hard-earned and remained with him long into retirement.
Cronkite Did Not Care For “Action News”.
His opinions on the state of televised news and information gathering in general soured with the years and likely did not improve with wall-to-wall coverage of events such as Michael Jackson’s death and funeral, the O.J. Simpson trial, and the general cult of celebrity around which North America hung its hat.
He told the British-made documentary Naked News of his dismay at the way local news was spiced up with celebrity gossip, spectacular footage of plane crashes or multi-car pileups on the highway, lamenting the emphasis stations placed on “Action News.”
“The action is not in action”, Walter told his interviewer. “It’s in the political discourse that decides how we are going to spend the rest of our lives.”
Replaced on GOP Convention Coverage
A holdover from the era when news reporters occupied the same social stratum as police officers and truck drivers – and were paid accordingly – Cronkite’s adherence to those values stood him in good stead when he came to something of a fork in the professional road in 1964.
In their self-help manual, When Smart People Fail, (Simon & Schuster, 1987) authors Carole Hyatt and Linda Gottlieb recount when CBS - in its panic over falling behind in the ratings war to NBC’s formidable team of Huntley and Brinkley – announced it was replacing Cronkite on its coverage of that year’s Republican Convention with Bob Trout.
Considered TV News “Dream World”
Though personally “shocked and angry” at learning of the corporation's decision, Cronkite swallowed his feelings, at least in public. When he calmed down, he reasoned, “it was their candy store”, and CBS had the right to do whatever it wanted. He told Hyatt and Gottlieb he looked on TV news as something of a “dream world”, not at all like the atmosphere at United Press International, the wire service he occupied for 11 years before coming to the “Eye” network in 1950, and something he could live without if necessary.
Walter refused to give reporters an acid remark about CBS czar Bill Paley and his underlings to put into print and bury him professionally. With them, he was extremely discrete, and since he had never publicly embarrassed the network, CBS had no problem reinstating him later that summer when the Democrats convened in Atlantic City.
Fallback Position Sustained Walter
What sustained him? Walter told Hyatt and Gottlieb of his “fallback” position, "underneath I'm really a writer with a desk at United Press. I could always end up back there, I tell myself". What mattered to him was the process of tracking down and nailing down the story, not the size of the paycheque or the star billing he would later receive when he became primo anchor of the CBS Evening News.
“It hasn’t happened (in all the years since 1964), and I don’t suppose it ever will,” he concluded, “but that’s what I tell myself.” In explaining his lack of bitterness, Cronkite concluded, "being able to shrug one's shoulders is one of the most important attributes we have,"
Enabled Cronkite to Focus on Process
The higher the top, the song goes, the longer the drop. Cronkite was at the top of his profession, but did not fear the drop; he always felt he had a "fallback" position. It is a valuable lesson for success-blinded North Americans, a reminder to focus on process and remember the passion behind the work they do.
Walter Cronkite never needed such reminders.
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