Walter Cronkite

Posted October 2, 2007, 10:19 pm
Credit Growing Bolder


Walter Cronkite
Born: Nov. 4, 1916

For nearly two decades, Americans overwhelmingly turned to Walter Cronkite each evening for the day's news. His is the voice and face most associated with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon.

He took the anchor desk at the "CBS Evening News" at the age of 47, and he announced his retirement in 1980, several months before his 65th birthday in keeping with CBS's policy at the time for mandatory retirement at 65.

"I'm not even going away! I'll be back from time to time with special news reports and documentaries," he said in his final broadcast. "Old anchormen, you see, don't fade away; they just keep coming back for more. And that's the way it is: Friday, March 6, 1981."

He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1981), and has won journalism's top prizes, including two Peabody Awards, two Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Awards, the William White Award for Journalistic Merit, an Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the George Polk Journalism Award and a Gold Medal from the International Radio and Television Society. An avid sailor, Cronkite wrote "South by Southeast," a record of his impressions sailing the waterways from Chesapeake Bay to Key West. A sequel, "North by Northeast," was also published.

After the Age of Seventy

• Since leaving the anchor desk, Cronkite has weighed in on a variety of topics, including free airtime for political candidates, the Bush Administration's Iraq policy and his support of a world government.
• He has lent his familiar voice to many projects, including the Spaceship Earth attraction at Walt Disney World's Epcot, the movie "Apollo 13," and ad campaigns for his alma mater, the University of Texas.
• His voice is also the one that introduces current "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric at the start of each broadcas
• At age 79, he made an appearance on Broadway, providing the voice of the titular book in the revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
  
• At age 80, he published his autobiography, "A Reporter's Life," which went on to become a bestseller.
• At age 81 (1998), he covered 77-year-old John Glenn's return to space, just as he had done 36 years earlier.
• At age 84, he published Around America: A Tour of our Magnificent Coastline.
  
• At age 88 (2005), he began blogging for the online journal "The Huffington Post."
• At age 89 (2006),  he became the first non-astronaut to receive NASA's Ambassador of Exploration Award.
  
• At age 92, He continues to occasionally serve as special correspondent for CBS, CNN and NPR.

Cronkite celebrates his 93nd birthday in November 2008.

Quotes:

• "And that's the way it is."
• "America's health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system."
• "I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything he's got."
• "I want to say that probably 24 hours after I told CBS that I was stepping down at my 65th birthday, I was already regretting it. And I regretted it every day since. "

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