Cronkite adeptly reported the latest breaking news ranging from the assassinations of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy…
From Senator Robert F. Kennedy to the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Cronkite took us through nearly two decades of racial and anti-war riots to …show more content…
Globally, anchors became known as – Cronkiters.
Note: Cronkite’s position as anchor was briefly usurped in l964, when the network, in a ratings move, replaced him as anchor at the 1964 presidential nominating conventions with the team of Robert Trout and Roger Mudd. Over 11,000 letters protesting the change were received into CBS…thus Cronkite returned to his seat as anchor. From that time until Cronkite’s retirement, CBS Evening News was the ratings leader across the board.
One more enduring note about Walter Cronkite… his nightly sign-off line each evening on CBS News was the expression, “And that’s the way it is.”
Cronkite received the George Polk Award in 1970, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981, and the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State is named in his honor.
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Cronkite enjoyed a long, fulfilling career to include his Fifties television program, “You Are There,” recreating great historic moments and his role as trusted CBS News anchor. He was blessed with a rich personal life, married for nearly 65 years to Betsy Maxwell Cronkite, who passed away in 2005. Three children and several grandchildren were born from the couple’s