The Tet Offensive of 1968 was a coordinated series of North Vietnamese attacks on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam. Roger Harrison Mudd (February 9, 1928 - March 9, 2021) was an American broadcast journalist who was a correspondent and anchor for CBS News and NBC News.He also worked as the primary anchor for The History Channel.Previously, Mudd was weekend and weekday substitute anchor for the CBS Evening News, the co-anchor of the weekday NBC Nightly News, and the host of the NBC-TV Meet the Press and . This bias, they said, was evidenced not so much by Cronkite's words as by his choice of what stories CBS covered, and by his habit of raising his eyebrows and scowling to show his disapproval of statements made by conservatives and Republicans. And he struck pay dirt in examining Cronkite's CBS radio broadcasts, where the anchor was far more opinionated and regularly dished what Brinkley calls "over-the-top commentary full of pro-Democratic partisanship." [8][9] [Dead link] However, Cronkite denied that he was asked. Widely regarded as authoritative, he was known as "Uncle Walter". when they did not express political views, when . Advertisement. Because of his straightforward reporting, without mixing his own personal political views, he earned the nickname, "The most trusted man in America." From . People could just go to Vanderbilt for it. He did a very good job. The duo's political differences surface after Byers confesses her fondness, bordering on obsession, with the Kennedy political family. Cronkite told AIM founder and editor Reed Irvine that he had been misquoted by Kobysh, and that he had a tape recording of the interview to prove it. CBS dropped its lawsuit, but some of the restrictions it insisted upon were put in place. The CBS anchor is remembered as a media giant who gruffly championed hard-hitting journalism. We survived the Civil War and the strife that tore this nation apart. I remember growing up, I would turn the TV on. Your Dream Home in Raanana This Is the Time! Once Richard Nixon took office, his unscrupulous aide Chuck Colson launched an investigation of Cronkite's record in hopes of exposing him as a Kennedy liberal. So it was all a Karl Rove production, according to the Crank named Cronkite. Even if one thinks Simpsons perception of deliberate political bias was misguided, his insistence on preserving the evening news in order to study and analyze its presentation was an extraordinarily important contribution. It was that commitment to factual. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walter-Cronkite, Warfare History Network - Walter Cronkite: The War As He Saw It, Public Broadcasting Service - American Masters - Walter Cronkite, Spartacus Educational - Biography of Walter Cronkite, Historic Missourians - Biography of Walter Cronkite, Walter Cronkite - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), CBS' Gayle King to get Cronkite journalism excellence award. For starters, he had no problem accepting freebies. The story is that there are those who want to cut defense spending. The most trusted man in America didnt deserve our trust. Washington, DC 20006 A decade later, Cronkite learned that his embarrassing role was going to be highlighted in a Roger Mudd documentary for CBS, The Selling of the Pentagon. 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Kennedy, Radio Television Digital News Association, James Madison Award for Distinguished Public Service, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, https://www.cah.utexas.edu/collections/news_media_cronkite.php, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, "Walter Cronkite | Biography, Facts, & Views on Vietnam War", "Cronkite honored by NASA for space coverage", "How 'That's the way it is' became Cronkite's tag line", "Former CBS News Anchor Walter Cronkite Dies", "How Missouri native became 'most trusted man in America', "Switch to Montessori proved pivotal for Wilson school", "Cronkite's Texas: A Q&A with Walter Cronkite", "CBS Legend Walter Cronkite Dies "Most Trusted Man in America" Passes Away in New York at 92", "Cronkite, Walter U.S. Broadcast Journalist", "Walter Cronkite, 92, Dies; Trusted Voice of TV", "Cronkite with Charlemane the Lion on CBS', "Walter Cronkite, America's original anchorman, dies at age 92", "Amid Blizzard, Cronkite Helped Make Sports History", "How John F. Kennedy's Assassination Changed Television Forever", "Cronkite broadcasts: Moon landing, JFK death", "JFK Assassination (CBS Coverage) Part 8/10 (1963)", "Remembering Walter Cronkite That's the Way it Was: The World of Politics, News and Entertainment Remember a Broadcasting Legend and American Icon", "Who, What, When, Where, Why: Report from Vietnam by Walter Cronkite", "Legendary CBS anchor Walter Cronkite dies at 92", "Chris Matthews invokes the 'if I've lost Cronkite' myth in NYT review", "Behind L.B.J. He told his audience that we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward world government, with a police force able to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. Cronkite called for the ratification of several U.N. treaties, including one that would create a criminal court to arrest and prosecute Americans. Cronkite asked, for example, why more Americans weren't livid with the administration for covering up the My Lai massacre. Although legal and copyright issues continue to hinder access, the Vanderbilt Television News Archive a repository of television news recordings from the past 50 years is a national archival treasure. Now we have to try to escape the fate of world government that Cronkite made his primary cause later in life, which has been adopted by President Barack Obama and Pope Benedict XVI. Cronkite once told me his liberalism "affected how I looked at the world" but not his reporting. He wasnt necessarily wrong: Cronkite, who enjoyed his reputation as the most trusted man in America, did detest Goldwater and was liberal in his politics. He also contributed essays to National Public Radios All Things Considered and occasionally served as a special correspondent for CBS. By Kenneth T. Walsh | Feb. 27, 2018, at 7:34 a.m. Cronkite's Moment American broadcast journalist. As media historian Charles L. Ponce De Leon wrote in 2015, It was news from Olympus, presented in a tone that suggested the voice of God., NBCs Reuven Frank sarcastically dismissed Simpsons claim that he was acting in the spirit of free inquiry, remarking that I have never known a self-proclaimed objective student who sought to evaluate my performance because he thought I was doing great.. Under pressure from the former president's team, CBS undid the misleading editing, so the public never learned of the deception. "I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause - but examining each case on its merits. Mr. Cronkite's read more Report Video Issue 0. I caught the opening night performance at the theater, which is located in the Bealls shopping center at 10175 S. Federal Highway. But he was far more liberal than the public believed, and he let it show in unacceptable ways. Presently he is Communications Coordinator at COJO Flatbush. In recent times, the archive was used in the 2015 documentary Best of Enemies because it contained lost footage of the debate between conservative commentator William F. Buckley and liberal writer Gore Vidal. They all told him that they werent available they only saved their broadcasts for about two weeks because it was too expensive to preserve them. Cronkite retired with his reptutation intact, but some other TV journalists were not so lucky. The Republican Convention began, and Ronald Reagan officially announced his candidacy for the presidential nomination, joining with liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller in an attempt to stop Richard Nixons hopes of a first ballot nomination. This is a mostly justifiable assessment. Demoted by NBC, which also fired three producers, over a 1993 Dateline broadcast that staged the fiery explosion of a GM truck. Simpson was shocked. This was duplicitous, a major breach of trust. Fired by MSNBC in 2003 for telling a caller to the show that he was a "sodomite" who should "get AIDS and die.". CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King has been chosen to receive the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism from Arizona State University, Encounter Walter Cronkite through his CBS News special commentary on the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald and on the Warren Commission. U.S. Pres. Broadcast on CBS Television, February 27, 1968. The encounter might have ended with the two storming to opposite corners of the bar in a huff, but instead they bond over a shared familiarity with the "Looney Tunes" theme song. News organizations today place heavy restrictions on the amount of gifts their journalists can receive, if any. Fifty years ago, in the middle of a typically hot and humid Nashville summer, a Metropolitan Life insurance manager named Paul Simpson sat with Frank Grisham, the director of the Vanderbilt University Library, in the rare books room of the main library building. Walter Cronkite, in full Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr., (born November 4, 1916, St. Joseph, Missouri, U.S.died July 17, 2009, New York, New York), American journalist and pioneer of television news programming who became known as "the most trusted man in America." Antiwar Movement Grows. But after covering Nixon's historic visit to China, he let loose with a night of partying in San Francisco. the 200 nations ? Walter Cronkite was the quintessential television newscaster of his time, respected by people of all political stripes. I got to know Cronkite after his anchoring days as a charming, hard-of-hearing, slightly stodgy spokesman for old-fashioned news values against the encroachment of tabloid entertainment. He had had other jobs before it, with small newspapers and small radio . That he endured and prospered, essentially unscathed, until his death in 2009 reminded me of how impervious the monopoly media were in those days, largely shielded from the scrutiny they inflicted on everyone else. I'd sure like to think so. Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org. They share personal tragedies, as well as some of their hopes and dreams. At each stop, he asked to see a broadcast from the previous month. Cronkites accomplices in this crusade included Dan Rather, his successor, and Bill Moyers, then with CBS and now with public television. Walter Cronkite We have overcome some terrible blows to our democracy, to the future of our democracy, to the future of our nation. Byers tries to set some boundaries "I don't do chitchat," she warns but chitchat nevertheless ensues. 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In Simpsons view, this exaggerated the scale of violence and discredited the police. But I see an upside as well: he wielded his enormous clout on behalf of muscular journalism. But Cronkite's denial was misleading. Always a political independent--a requisite for an impartial newsman, he says--Cronkite, Mr. Middle American Everyman, even advocates a new sociopolitical system. The networks had never been singled out by elected officials in this way, and they werent happy about the scrutiny. But dont pretend that he was an objective journalist. Cronkite continued in his position at CBS through the 1970s, reporting on the decades most memorable events, including the Watergate scandal, the resignation of U.S. Pres. [12], In 2004, he appeared in the liberal documentary Outfoxed, in he which criticized Fox News Channel and claimed it had a conservative bias.[13]. And the strife that tore this nation apart I looked at the theater, which also fired three producers over! 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